A branch of lightning comes to El Salvador's famous righthand point, Punta Roca…
Dirty, tortured, gorgeous El Salvador. Set afire for a dozen years through the eighties and nineties with a left vs right civil war that spawned such fiendish crimes as “death squads” and the interference of the Reagan government for whom communism was worse than any sort of human rights indecency.
Of course, now…now… the smallest country in Central America lives in… well, it ain’t what you’d call peace. Its capital, San Salvador, has the third-highest murder rate in the world, a hundred people killed in every one hundred thousand.
LA? Six. Sydney? One. Those tattooed boys like to gang bang in El Sal.
On the upside, the joint is a shortish flight from the US and they use US dollars. And in the not-so-little town of La Libertad there is the righthand, sandbottom point Punta Roca, popular with mostly American surfers since the seventies (a ton of the surf scenes in John Milius’ Big Wednesday were shot there). Earthquakes, shitty water, malaria and so forth complete the picture.
For a kinetic hot-rod like Filipe Toledo, who is twenty two and who owned Jeffreys Bay last year, the soft point is a wave where he can charge to and fro, upturning his surfboard and surfing as fast as a dog racing through a cathedral.
I would suggest, as a primer for how to rip a point wave, you might like to watch this latest edit by Filipe’s filmer Bruno Baroni…
What’s happened to his style?
Feck that was….boring.
did not dig
15 air reverses.
I heard the gangs have a special fetish for aussies and have a maneuver they like to call “throw another shrimp on the barbe”.
I find the appropriation of slave songs to electronic music to be somewhat of a dick move. But I guess if the misery-turned-art of human property makes the full rotors come across as soulful, who am I to judge?
I only skimmed through, is that a bag of nickels?
love the surfing, hate the edit. my dude, pick a speed. pick a speed! ugggghhh.
Agree definitely lacked flow. Not enough complete waves for my last king either.
Punta Roca ain’t sand bottom.
I had to sift through some real fruity gear to get to the bit about Filipe’s chubby board…
Filipe Toledo’s custom 1980 Retro Twin Fin from MR itself…
Congrats to this man Mono, an artist, and of course MR and Filipe!
Gonna be funny, and furious, see it with Filipe!
“Mono has finished the spray on Filipe Toledo’s custom 1980 Retro Twin Fin & he has totally gone off. I know I’m slightly biased but shit it looks stupidly good !!!! Filipe chose the design from one of my Instagram posts of a 1978 Retro Twin Fin that featured the incredible art / Color work / Glassing skills of Paul Lefevre from @thesonofcobra It was a a special MR board that Paul worked on to display in the Lost Surfboards booth at a trade show. I think Matt Biolos ended up keeping it for his board collection. This board for Filipe is 5’7″ long, 193/4″ wide & 21/2″ thick.”
https://www.instagram.com/p…
Almost twenty inches wide and two-and-a-half thick? Little Filipe could SUP that thing!
Run above water!!! hahahaha
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_A…
But let me say one thing …
I see a change gradually taking place in Filipe … mind and body, and especially attitude.
I never imagined seeing him doing the fitness workout at Medina level … and he’s doing …
Fool anyone who still has the image of slight kid …
You want to know what’s coming next, in the stunning conclusion of his story? Filipe’s going to learn to surf, really surf, Teahupoo. Watch.
2018 ct champ surely?
yes, world championship tub champ
The time to bet on FilipeWC18 is before the Quikpro.
Those nice odds will be dropping after that comp.
+Wavepool / – Cloudbreak
No pipe 2019, could go 2 in a row. What odds for that??
Papa will be stoked, though.
Marks posts are the way instagram should be done. I love his feed, classic shots with in depth explanation. His recall is uncanny and a mini history lesson in a short read. That mono spray was slick though.
I follow him!
He’s just amazing, polite, a lesson of surf history!
Simply the way a profile have to be!
And of course one of my idols!
Is that Mono Stewart the kneeboard world champ?
Yes!
It’s him!!!!