Absolute Jubilation!  Stoke!!  The fact that this was the second time in a week Ke11y won his 11th didn’t take anything away from the massive accomplishment.  He sealed it like a true champion; of the likes we may never see again in our lifetimes.  The youngest and oldest to ever win a world title, much less 11 of them.

Take a bow!  He not only found the impossible barrel, well after the buzzer, but threaded it flawlessly.  As if he needed to put an exclamation mark forth.

Kelly Slater is deep inside this one.

We all assumed he wasn’t coming out….

I even brought my lens down from my eye only to see him come flying out of the barrel a couple seconds later.  I, along with the thousands of others lining the shore, erupted in excitement.

Seeing Slater surf live puts it all in perspective.

After Slater got out of the water, conditions just fell apart.  There were ramps here and there, as you can see, but after another couple heats the contest was put on hold.  When the kiters come out, you know it’s pretty much all over.  I paddled out shortly after Slater’s speech and got about an hour in before it was just an absolute mess.Trying to emulate greatness in slop conditions was humbling.  Stay tuned as we still have the quarters, semis and finals planning to run with smaller swell, but improved conditions through the week.

What a day!!

Sunrise on the morning show!

Exciting to see all the pros in town and the waves turn on.

AI Tribute!  I think we all would have liked to see what Andy Irons would have done in these conditions.

There were some gems to be found.

Nice to see a professional slash

and a professional gouge.

The modern surfer is an acrobatic genius

Case in point.  This guy landed this huge alley oop.

Here’s the first heat of the day on Wednesday

Bede taking it to Dane.

Dane answered back, but didn’t have much luck landing em’

more to come…

The Streets of San Francisco from Matt Wilkinson on Vimeo.

I thought I lost this post…but it was just hidden as a draft somewhere in the wordpress vault.  I wrote this about a month ago….and have much more pending…so figured I’d post it even though its now dated.

Great weekend for  kicking off the start of surf season.  Took my newly turned 10 year old down south with me on Saturday and paddled out for some point waves.  He was having a blast standing on his board just off the peak and diving over the backs of all the big ones and watching dolphins frolic in the surf.  He even got to see one dolphin tossing a fish around like a play toy…some real Discovery channel type stuff that even in my many years of surfing hadn’t seen until then.   A great time until he got caught by a set that swung wide and forced him to deal with four big ones right on his head.  He had never done full somersaults underwater before or been held down for so long and so that took a bit of his confidence away.  He felt better when another surfer paddled over and commented on how he was charging, but he was still a bit shaken up.  He wasn’t the only one that had to get used to some more size filling in though.

Down to two boards that don’t need  ding repair and so I busted out my 6′5″ that I rode on the big Labor Day south swell and reaped the rewards of getting in early and full confidence taking off on the hollow a frames.  I paddled out shortly after low tide and stayed in the water for about three hours.  The waves went from breaking hollow on the inside bar to pushing out further onto the middle bars as the tide filled in.  There were some bowly fast rights and long walled up lefts that got my heart pumping.  I landed a pretty good sized floater and tucked into a couple little cover ups within the first thirty minutes.

I had to drop off my suit for repair down south and so ended up picking up a winter suit that was half price.  I couldn’t resist.  $200 for what I thought was a 5/4/3.  I figured it would be nice to have a little extra warmth and now I could get up to Oregon to surf with my brothers this winter without hesitation.  Well it turned out to be a 6/5/4, which for you warm water folks is the thickest wetsuit you can buy.  I used to wear one of these in NY back in the day during the dead of winter when the water temp was 37 degrees.  Gazza, I may be coming to see you in Michigan now that I’m packing the proper gear.  Who knows where this wetsuit will take me.  One thing for sure is that this wetsuit is way too hot for San Francisco.  I thought i was going to get heatstroke paddling around in the overhead surf.  I had to periodically flush it with cold water just to deal.  Even without the hood on and no booties, I was burning up.  I’ll have to admit though, that I did feel pretty invincible out there.  With the new rubber it doesn’t even really slow you down noticeably.

Getting caught inside didn’t have quite the same effect it normally did either.  Being warm, or hot in this case, makes a big difference to the experience of surfing up here…especially with size.  No fun getting held down and flushed with 50 degree water simultaneously.

A new swell is arriving tomorrow and expected to peak out on Wednesday at around 12 ft.  Hoping to catch a bit of it if I can squeeze it in to my ever increasingly busy schedule.  Our two days of summer this year was glorious and felt like it officially ended with rain on Sunday morning, but then the sun came out, the wind went offshore and the swell wasn’t half bad.  Looking forward to improved conditions as we move into the best time of the year here.

drunk boat bumpy grain fed mess from kai otton on Vimeo.

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Thank goodness Fogust is over.  I think we had three sunny days all month out here in the  Sunset and only a few more days of fun surf…yesterday being the highlight of the month for sure.   September started off with a bang though, or rather a boom as the wedgy south swell peaks thundered on the sandbars.

I waited for the afternoon session to paddle out and instead spent my  morning waking up with some coffee and my camera in the dunes and then the early afternoon doing ding repair and running errands.  By the time I got in the water I was so stoked and ready to charge, which was a good thing cause there were some solid sets coming through.  I would say 4-6 foot, with the occasional 8-10 foot bomb sets every twenty minutes.  The whole ocean would light up  with the long period swell coming in and when those 8-10 footers came in it was like cat and mouse on my 6′5″.

Luckily you could see the sets coming and they were really peaky so they were easy to dodge if you weren’t’ in the right spot.

It was great to feel some winter style juice during our Summer.  Remnants of the swell that blasted Tahiti and brought the biggest swell in ten years to Ala Moana.

All the real locals were stoked.  These dolphins have been hanging out for the past week or so and were whizzing by me and flying out of the water.  Pretty amazing to see such a large animal playing alongside you in the surf.

These guys aren’t small and always pop up right when the sets would come.  An awesome sight when they fly right by you.

Looks like the swell is going to stick around a couple more days.  Nice warm up for fall after a long foggy summer.  Bring on the Indian Summer and offshore winds.

Kyle lives on in this video about the decision of the Taiwanese government to ban surfing when Typhoon alerts are in effect. That boy is rippin! So frustrating for the local surfers as this is what they wait for all year long.

Read the article

Got this for Father’s Day and watched it before the south hit this weekend. All sorts of beautiful wave craft and styles to get you inspired.

SIGHT|SOUND from High Seas Films on Vimeo.

Cool to see this music find its visual match after twenty some odd years. I met Paul McCartney with his son and his daughter Stella at the surf shop I worked at while in school many years ago and was super stoked to find out that one of the greatest living musical legends and icons of the 20th Century is actually a surfer too!

Blue Sway | Paul McCartney from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.