We left for Santa Cruz after the pool session on Tuesday at the pool session I worked on my flat-water loops and flat-water blunts to practice them. Practicing blunts in flat water is great to learn how to get the movements down by putting in an initiation stroke in and edges on the side them switching to the other side and getting vertical just by using one stroke instead of the double pump.

We got to the lighthouse park around 9am and got in the water at about 11 then I paddled till 5pm before getting out I used both the Wavesport Project 52 and the Dragorossi Squashtail, the Squashtail was my favorite for these kind of waves because of its speed so I enjoyed carving up and down the face of the wave. Although I found out later that I couldn’t use it in the competition because it didn’t have rescue loops on the bow and stern. So I ended up using the Project 52 since the edges weren’t as hard as the Squashtail I couldn’t keep in the green as easily.

Thursday I ended up training with the project all day in order to get more used to the edges in order to get more points and I even learned to stay in the green and still throw a couple of moves and stay in the green although with the Squashtail I would have been able to catch a lot more waves the Project made up for its slowness in the tricks it could through that the other boats couldn’t. I paddled until around 5 or 6 again and I was completely wiped after learning how to stay in the green and keep out of the wash.

Friday was the first day of competition; my heat was at 1:00 pm so I had some time before I had to paddle I decided to go and get all the information before about competing I could since this was my first surf competition and I found out that you get more points for carving than air tricks like blunts and pan-ams. So if you’re a whitewater boater and intend on competing in a surf comp make sure you either borrow a HP boat or have one of your own. Without one it is very hard to get good points but is possible just make sure that you paddle hard to catch.

Saturday I had my second heat and got an extremely good ride with 26 points so I g.ot one good ride at least even with me being in a plastic boat. Although I still came in last of my heat but beat, one of the HP boats coming in at 7^th place overall. It was a lot of fun competing in the surf competition getting out and learning about the different kinds of kayaking.

Sunday we watched the finals of Men’s, Junior’s and Women’s the finals were amazing to watch everyone.