ASP Hurley Pro

Photo and words by photo assistant Jobi Manson

3:45 am the alarm goes… I leave my apartment in West Hollywood to venture slightly farther south to Lower Trestles, to witness the only ASP event located in the continental United States. I met my friend John at Carl’s Jr. where we proceeded to make the journey down the path to the hidden gem located at the San Mateo State camping ground.

Not being a native Californian, I knew the legend of Trestles, but had yet to experience its magic. Now let me preface this entry by saying, the surf on Day 2 of the Hurley Pro was less then magic. However, that’s not to say that magic didn’t occur. Arriving at the break just before sunrise, John and I found a spot on the pebble-laden beach and set up shop in order for me shoot. Lurking just behind my left shoulder happened to be the athlete’s only tent, to which I gazed star struck at all of my childhood surfing idols (the boys). In the tent warming up slash playing hacky sack were Cj. Hobgood & Marlon Lipke. Fortunately for me a very nice gentleman who happens to be the highest voted surf repair shop in San Clemente scored me a VIP pass, which allowed me to get stalker status on these gentlemen. Some even said hello.

The morning heats started off well enough in my opinion the better surf for sure. Cj rocked out beating Lipke… Taylor Knox proved that age doesn’t matter at all when it comes to surfing talent walking all over Australia’s Drew Courtney. Take that Australia, not so seppo now eh mate? And now I’m skipping to the part where I do what Dave refers to as “hating”. I am gonna “hate” for a minute on the results of heat number 8 concerning my official favourite surfer, South African Umhlanga boy JORDY SMITH and Tiago Pires. Jordy pulled two 360’s and blasted a superman air and lost? What is the surfing world coming to when progressive manoeuvres are being shunned? Okay, maybe I shouldn’t say shunned.. But Tiago’s roundhouses and slashes off the lip were far less entertaining…very vanilla. Where as Mr. Smith’s manoeuvres are more easily equated with a banana split? How do you like your ice cream? Because personally I like a little flavour. Okay, done hating…

As the afternoon progressed I ventured into the VIP section to grab some free food (yes!) and linger. I happened to bump in Rob Machado who was intrigued with my tilt shift and began to inquire what type of lens I was shooting with. Pretty cool meeting and greeting some of the pro’s.  All in all a very fun day, I even went home to discover I had a bit of sunburn. I guess twelve hours in the sun will do that to you.

Posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 11:42 pm. Filed under: California, Surfing Tags: ASP, Hurley, Hurley Pro, Jobi Manson, Josh Kerr, Surfing RSS 2.0 feed.