Local Paddock Advertising, NZ styleThe Contest officially started Saturday April 11. All the teams met around 11am for a parade down teh main street in Opunake. There were representatives from Australia, NZ, UK, USA, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Ireland, Tahiti, South Africa, and Canada. The opening ceremonies were held in a large tent where the competitors and community members congregated to listen to speeches and watch/listen to a cultural performance by a local Moari childrens dance group.
It was a wonderful welcome. There is a great video put together by by Visual Journalist, Michael Fernandez, that captures a bit of NZ and the atmosphere of the contest:
The surfing events started sunday. The first heats of the contest, which included the womens, cadets and teams event, were held at Opunake main Beach. Conditions were small, the wind was predominantly on shore and overall made for really challenging conditions.
I made it thorugh the first round of the womens event, but with conditions becoming more difficult, and small as the tide went out and the day went on I was unable to get the waves and score the points to move on to the final.
The following day I surfed the Open (mens) Trials, challenging for me and did not make it to the next heats.
The surf seemed to get better as the week wore on. By the time I had to surf again a few days later in my age division we had much better waves than sunday. I had one decent scoring wave and was surprised to be in second place for part of the heat, however, I was unable to connect and catch a second waves to hold second place.
Contest surfing is a bit nerve racking, but it is a great way-a catalyst- to push your surfing. I was disappointed to not make the womens final, but I certainly enjoyed free surfing the rest of the week. I also really enjoyed seeing so many good surfers out showing their moves. Heat after heat, wave after wave, it really was a treat to see so much performance kneeboarding.
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