Lay days during the Triple Crown aren’t as anticlimactic as the phrase makes them out to be. Sure, it’s a break from competition and that’s nice for the pros. But when it comes down to it, many of these guys and gals are in country to make statements. Statements solidified through photos and footage. These are the kind of statements that materialize on instagram and vimeo that we drool over, staring into our bright laptop screens and sipping beers like a portal to our hopes and dreams.
Once the waves died down after the first day of the Vans World Cup of Surfing at Sunset, prompting a lay day, I figured Log Cabins, located just down from Off The Wall and Pipe, would be pumping out some solid overhead rights kudos to the N swell direction. Sometimes you’ll even find a split peak out there and some hollow lefts and rights. I realized it would be difficult to get waves, or feel good about my surfing when I walked by Jordy Smith perched on the lanai watching his friend Ian Walsh throwing buckets of spray hard enough to keep the spectators on the beach nice and cool from the ensuing mist. Within another ten minutes, Dane Gudauskas and what seemed like the entire Vans team showed up, licking their chops at the lay day wave frenzy they were gifted with.
I stashed my board, grabbed my camera, cracked a beer and enjoyed the clinic. For the next two hours I snapped until my SD card was full. If I had more skills as a photographer, or any for that matter, the pictures would be better. Having found inspiration through the pro’s performance, and hoping that the monkey-see-monkey-do philosophy is a real thing, I stowed my camera, grabbed my board and surfed Leftovers; literally and figuratively.
