This was sent to us from Carlos Gonzalez at Beach Cats in Puerto Rico...
I wanted to let you know that this last weekend we had Puerto Rico's first contest that included SUP Surfing. The contest took place at old San Juan legendary break Playa La 8. Conditions where somewhat extreme, 12‘ to 15’ faces on 4 wave sets, wave selection was critical since all sets included at least 2 closeouts. Playa La 8 is known for hitting hard at 7’ at 14’ it doesn’t only hit you it want to break you in half.
Ernie showed patience and poise waiting for the best wave and then charging them with a combination of turns that made everyone look twice to realize that he was doing this on a SUP and NOT on a 6’ shortboard, sticking his paddle on the face and completing bottom turns, cutbacks, roundhouses, smacking the lip hard.
The top 2 places of the Finals heat was hard fought between Javier Gorbea and Ernie Alvarez, Mario Oronoz and Eliezer, Ernie kept his plan of picking the best wave because at this size getting back to the peak was not a guarantee, he picked the best wave of the set carving hard turns and completing the wave to the end, Javier did not plan to give in to his friend Ernie, but after his first wave he notice that Eliezer had broken his leash and consequently lost his board, Javier took it upon him self to rescue the board until help from the shore arrived. After that Javier was back at the peak charging waves to put forward his best effort forward for the coveted first place but Ernie’s best wave of the heat on the eyes of the judges proved unbeatable.
Ernie got first place, Javier got second place, Mario got 3rd place. I am going to try to get some pictures and send them to you, by the way Ernie was paddling with his Werner Spanker, he cannot wait for his wave design carbon Nitro to arrive. I inform him that Beach Cats would be getting them a bit ahead of schedule in early April, and was pumped to learn that one of those was his already.
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