Day One: Puerto Escondido Challenge!

Jamie Mitchell scoops a monster backside cabana (ten!) and more!

Puerto started somewhere around 3am Hawaii time. No way I was waking up for it. Instead spent the time having some surreal dream about a trip to Europe. I can only assume it was because I was reading about the brexit thing before lights out.

No big deal to me that the limeys want to ruin their country because of fear and racism. I’ve gotta focus on problems at home. A bunch of fascists want to use fear and racism to ruin my country.

Woke up at six, made some coffee, caught the end of the second heat. No one caught a wave for about a half hour. Because that’s how big wave surfing rolls.

First heat, the one that I missed, ended up G. Long/Layer/Lenny. Lenny scraped through on a single score.

Internet commentary says Greg dominated.

Heat two is Skudin/Baker/Ramirez. Great to see a local wildcard advance.

Amusing myself by guessing at who’s wasted the largest amount of money competing in the event. So far it’s Billy Kemper. Getting to Nicaragua from Kauai costs me about $1200. Tickets purchased months in advance. Don’t know how much it costs to get from Maui to Puerto, but I’d guess it’s close. At least he’s in Mexico. Thousand bucks goes a bit further down there.

Makua started off heat three with a clamping monster. Pedro Galado followed on a smoker pocket ride. But it don’t score well if the judges can see you. Nice to see human wave mentality applied to sheer fucking insanity.

Tom Lowe got a long pit on an early roll in left. No exit. Nice beating, I’m sure. Bright side for Tom, even if he doesn’t make the heat he should do well. If you take the exchange rate into consideration. US$1000 is about three billion pounds at the moment. He can use the money to buy some scraps of bread.

His effort put him in first, great great great. Fuck crusts of bread, he’ll be able to afford an entire army of orphans.

Kaipo Guerrero on the mic! Love the guy. Hardest working surfer in Hawaii. I swear, the guy never slows down for a minute. Talking to Skudin, calls him blue collar. Means that big waves ain’t a real job. Gotta slave your fingers to the bone to stay alive. Then risk your life to enrich the non-surfing carpet baggers.

Gnarly shit going down in Oaxaca right now. Cops murdering peaceful protesters. Gotta smash those unions! I had no idea until yesterday.

Dave Stanfield doesn’t know how to pronounce Oaxaca.

Looking at the shoulder to shoulder construction nightmare of Puerto. Jeez, surfers ruin fucking everything, don’t we?

Makuakai straightened out on something out of a fever delirium. Getting murdered on the inside. Safety crew trying to get to him but held off at the moment. WSL needs to stick some Go Pros on those guys. I’d love to see what it looks like to hammer a PWC head-on into an overhead wall of whitewater.

Just read that David Cameron resigned. I would too. Who wants to deal with the coming hell? “Fuck y’all. I got a ton of cash hidden offshore. I’m out.” But with a British accent.

Holy shit, Burle on a bomb. Late drop on his backhand, pulls into the closeout on the inside. Like BI’s iconic Eddie wave, only twice as big. Inflated his vest, but he’s okay.

Damn hard way to earn a buck.

Bianca Valenti is very excited she gets to compete in a single event this year. Maybe.

Slow and steady, ladies. If you’re patient and don’t raise a ruckus the menfolk will eventually treat you well.

Makua has a big lead in first, gets out fifteen minutes early. Decent decision. He’s through the heat guaranteed. Not like a normal contest where he needs to sit on his competition.

Flurry of action as the heat winds down. Mex local Lozano gets a good one, Calado follows in a long tube that closes on him at the end. Burle has to straighten out on the biggest of the three and gets detonated.

Lozano pulls in high on a clamper. That’s gonna be a long hold down.

Rothman/Calado/Burle advance from heat three. Lowe takes for most money spent to earn a grand.

Where’s Healey? Why’s his instagram private? Did I miss something? Is it because he spoke out against the WSL’s monopoly during the Red Bull comp? I’m talking to Wassel later, maybe he knows.

One more heat until we’re done for the day. Thank goodness. I’ve got shit to do.

Jamie Mitchell starts off heat four on a strong note. Crazy right hand tube, back foot slips off on the exit. Jimel Corzo, local wildcard, follows on a left that almost looks manageable. Until it hits that inside sandbar and makes my asshole pucker.

Makua’s headshot on the WSL site is terrifying.

Rothman’s head shot is so intense, if you ran it with a story about eating people and I’d say something similar. Gaze burns right through you. Follows you around the room.

I highly doubt he really eats people. Impossible to get away with that on an island as small as Oahu. But he does travel quite a bit…

Mitchell grabs his second wave. Tippy toe backhand tube, all over the face, out of control. No idea how he held on and made it to the shoulder. Corzo follows on a runner left that forces him to straigten out.

Rest of the set cleans up the field. Mitchell definitely got the score, big fat 10. Wonder if he regrets taking off on the first wave of the set? Looks like he got beat all the way to the inside.

Chilean Merello grabs his first wave of the heat and has to straight-off-adolf.

Rusty Long has one run away. Fuck, I’ve been bodysurfing storm surf whompers the last few days. I feel wrung ragged. Been scrubbing sand out of every orifice. Can’t imagine what these dudes are going through.

Merello’s on the inside having some sort of trouble on the ski. This ain’t Brazil, don’t blame the driver.

Rusty Long in the lead for hideous closeout of the contest. Mitchell behind him pumping full speed on a huge board. Gets clamped on the end. Doesn’t need the score, but he’s gonna get it.

Merellos on the next one. Looks gorgeous at the start, but he can’t get the rail in at the bottom and a thousand feet of churning whitewater catches him.

Nic Lamb picks off his first forty minutes in. He’s playing it safe. Relatively.

Mitchell’s got a ten and a 9.03. It’s in the bag. R.Long got a 9.17 for one of his waves, I assume it’s that last awful closeout. Moves into second.

Who the hell is Jimel Corzo? Kid is a madman. Crazy barrel that eats him alive moves him into second. No one’s catching Mitchell though.

Who’s stayed in the lineup, even though he’s got the win wrapped up. Because he loves this shit. It ain’t about points. It definitely ain’t about money. It’s because he lives to heave that big square jawline over the ledge.

Buzzer sounds the end of heat four. Mitchell/Corzo/R.Long advance to tomorrow.

Two Mexican nationals remain in the event. I think that’s pretty neat.