Travels

Sorry for not updating for so long! I had a blast in Colombia, and Mexico as well but after two months I'm heading home. Lots of pictures to come as well as stories but for now nada mas nada mas.

Back to the Aina

I love traveling but it's always good to be home. I brought some gifts with me, and also the stomach flu. Not fun, feeling better today though. Here is a little picture slideshow from the event, I took most of them(that's why they suck) and some are from Maxime. Enjoy

Time to relax.

The contest is all wrapped up here in Morocco. We had all different types of conditions during our ten day waiting period. In the first two days we had small waves with mostly jumping, and on the last couple of days we had some down the line action with over head sets. The down the line days were a bit tricky as it was a long wait between sets and finding the right wave of each set was critical. Some of them lined up across the whole bay and closed out while others held up and peeled allowing for great rides. The wind was light and gusty and sometimes just disappeared. Our team had a good third round with the local knowledge of Sofiane getting us a second place. The wind picked up a little in my heat, I was riding my 5.3 Fire and Quad 80. I managed to put together a couple of nice waves and tied for second with Yann Sorlut and Francisco Fonseca took the win.

In between these two days Zane decided he would do some laundry in the hotel we are staying at. He did a whole bag and when they gave it back to him it had a list of prices for each piece. Bad choice. They ranged from 3 Euros a sock to 17 Euros for a shirt. The total bill was 175 Euros for a bag of laundry! More money then all the clothes were probably worth. After a few panicking moments he got it together and with a smile at the receptionists he managed to talk it all the way down to 30 Euros.

The next day Francisco Porcella was in the first heat, but he got the Moroccan stomach flew and was stuck at the hotel. I sailed for him in that heat and finished with another second place after JB Caste. Finally our veteran Kai Katchadorian showed everyone the Hawaiian style of riding with big vertical cutbacks on every wave. He had a tight heat but pulled out the win and secured our first place in that round. Our first place in the last round wasn’t quite enough to move us into second place, but we were all pretty happy to show what we can do in wave sailing conditions.

We got really lucky with this event, the forecast was really bad the entire time, but every day we showed up at the beach we had conditions. Just before the closing ceremony we got word that the council of Morocco in Hawaii was in town and wanted to meet with us. It was a great meeting and they are really motivated to help the watersports community here in Essaouira. We exchanged information and hopefully we will be able to work together in the future.

At the closing ceremony, local boys Boujmaa and Fettah cleaned up with the best team award, best international rider, best local, and best move. Another of the local rippers, Abdel, won best wipeout with a big pushloop bail. Everyone made a pretty big party at one of the local bars. The sinus infection I got earlier in the week turned into a fever and I went home a little early. Judging by the look of a couple of the guys I think I was pretty lucky to avoid it.

All the riders have headed home now, but I have an extra week to hang out here in Moulay. I’m staying at Cafe Moulay it’s the family home of Abdel and Fettah. Two of the young charging windsurfers here in Morocco. Boujmaa took care of me yesterday as my sinus infection got worse. He set up a doctor for me, took me to pharmacy and cooked me the best meal I have had so far. The Arabic translation of Aloha is Marhaba and many of the people in the windsurfing community here know how to practice it Boujmaa is a great example of this.

The vibe here in Moulay is very relaxed. There isn’t much rush to anything except if it’s possible to catch a free ride to the city. When there is no wind the wave is very soft which makes it great for SUPing. It looks like the wind is going to pick up just before I leave. There is a video up on waveclassicinvitational.com and they will be adding the final video sometime this week. Hopefully I will be feeling better and able to get some more time on the water.

Aloha,

Nick

nickwarmuth.blogspot.com

A big thank you to

©Maxime Houyvet:Open Ocean Media for the action shots and the group shots

1st day of Competition

Aloha from Morocco!
Yesterday we had our first day of competition. The conditions were 25 knots and 1 with the occasional 2 foot waves. Great jumping, but not the best waveriding. I was fully powered on my 4.2 Fire and 72 liter OES Quad. The first round had some great action with big backloops, pushloops, and even a couple of doubles! The contest format is very cool, one sailor from each of the five teams sails in every heat. All the competitors sail and judge each others heats. Our team is Kai Kachadorian, Francisco Porcella, me, and our local boy Sofiane. Our whole team are hardcore wave sailing specialists, even our local is one of the best wave riders here. The jumping style of the contest is not the best for us, but after two rounds our team is locked into 3rd place. The most important part is that we are having fun and enjoying sailing with the locals here in Morocco. Today we are getting a little later start, everyone is pretty tired and sore from the action yesterday. We might run another round today, and a small swell is forecasted for next week. Praying for surf here. Check out more of the action at waveclassicinvitational.com

Morocco pics

What an amazing place. I can only imagine what it is like when north swells pound the coastline for months. I might have to come here in the winter time. The food is great, the people friendly, and the town is full of good energy.

What happens when you spend two days trek

king around the world and then

get stuck an extra 16 hours in a

two room airport terminal. You look like this... Here are couple shots while we cruised through Essauira. The day before and the day after had amazing sunsets. Action tomorrow, check out the webpage(waveclassicinvitational.com).

Lets sail!

Still hoping for wind here in Morocco. The forecast is for it to hit 3.7 windy. Lets hope, some more pics to come...

Camel surfing!!

Not much waves yet but we've been able to get some surfing in! I did get an hour of sailing today if you can call it that in front of the hotel. Very light even by my standards, side-on and one foot fun though. Thank you Guy Cribb for letting me borrow some stuff. He's here teaching windsurfing lessons at the local mistral club, check him out. More pics to come, forecast is looking good!

Summer break/Morocco

Finals are done, papers are turned and I'm out of here! Summer break is here, which means, no waves for Maui sadly. I can finally keep this blog updated now though.

After a long trip where I got stuck in New York for an extra 8 hours and then in Casablanca for another 8 hours, I made it! The country is amazing, we're waiting on wind and waves, but the forecast is looking good. I'll be taking some pictures today and posting later. Last night I sat on a castle wall and watched the sun set over the Atlantic. Amazing.

We have an great group of people here for this event. We've been having way too much fun. I can't wait to get on the water too.

Morocco Wave Classic

This May I will be heading to the Essaouira Wave Classic!! I don't think I have ever been this excited for an event. It's a really cool team format for the competition with good friends. Hopefully we will have good conditions, check out the event at

http://waveclassicinvitational.com/essaouira/

Hookipa last week

Here are a couple of shots my wonderful girlfriend took from Hookipa. Some really nice shots, especially since I don't have a big lens for my camera and it was her first time using it. I kind of like the photo shopped one I did at the end, that's me in the background and her brother pipe in the front. Let's pray for surf, it's not looking to good. Lots of wind though.

Starboard Quads

I've had some time to test out Star-boards Quads, 76,81 and I'm really stoked on them. They are some what of a cross between a single fin, twin fin, and the evo line. I've had them in a range of conditions from head high onshore slop, to over mast choppy side-shore and down the line perfection. The 76 is my favorite, I've never had a board work so well in onshore conditions and also have the ability to go top to bottom vertically. The boards have a whole different "pop" coming of the lip or hitting white water. They allow you to clear sections and make things you normally wouldn't. They're great boards for all conditions.

Spring Break!

Sorry for slacking so much on the blog. It's been a busy couple of weeks, a couple north swells, a good size out of season south swell, mountains of school work, and a busy work schedule.

It's all good now, it's spring break from school and for me that means spending as much time in the water as possible. For Maui, it's another batch of tourists arriving to keep business going until summer, and for us windsurfers it means all the pros are coming. Maui has definitely switched over to spring time weather. It's warmer and much windier. It's also photo shoot time here and the island is quickly filling up with pros who are ripping. It's amazing to see how high the level of sailing gets pushed every year. Today could be a great show at Hookipa, yesterday was a bit too big but I heard a couple people tried. The outer reefs were almost big enough yesterday at Kanaha and I heard they were a little better up the coast.

Should be good fun all week!!

Here are a couple of shots courtesy of GP mauisurfreport.blogspot.com

Monday was fun, but yesterday was the day. Logo high down the line with only two other people out! Checked out kanaha in the afternoon, really knarly. Big waves and really really windy. Excellent conditions all week though. There are some pictures up at mauisurfreport.blogspot.com. Probably more to come.

tsunami

tsunami warning from an earthquake in chile...

Life's good

Just picked up my two new surfboards from Chris Carrozza. He shapes and makes custom surfboards here in Maui. So stoked! Can't wait to get them in the water. There has been some windsurfing this week, mostly "float sessions" at Kanaha and Hookipa. Slogging out through the waves and then surfing them, not much planning conditions. We had one day of North West wind and Pascal and I got some good port tack sailing. I was struggling but he was killing it on his normal tack. I heard Kanaha was fun that day as well. Without a big board, I wouldn't be doing much sailing at all this winter. Thanks Kevin for putting together such a nice video from last week, check it out at http://www.pritchardwindsurfing.com/content/blogcategory/14/44/. We got some new swells coming this week, don't know about the wind though. See you in the water. Aloha

New international windsurfing magazine

New international windsurfing magazine is up check it out at http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/f90780b9#/f90780b9/1

See if you can find me in there!

Pooped

"I hit the lip and it like shot me out and I actually landed it!" "I got eight turns on one wave!" "that was the best ariel I've had all year!" Just a couple things I heard from people today. 6 hours on the water today. I can't believe I get to do it all over again tomorrow. Life's good!

The Pit

I don't think this picture does the place justice, but I think you can get a idea of the power behind it. The wave looks about logo high, but what you don't see is that when it hits the reef the sea level drops 5 or 6 feet. When you are on the shoulder you really notice how the whole bottom just drops out. You can probably add another 5 or 6 feet on this wave. It's enough of a drop to completely hide me, I'm doing a bottom turn somewhere on this wave. You can see my track going up the face. Hopefully this new swell fills in nice Tuesday night and I'll be charging the pit all week. So come sail with me...

Happy Birthday to Bob Marley

if he were alive today he'd be 65. The world wouldn't have been the same without him. Take some time today to listen and hear the message in his music.

Here are a couple of quotes from the legend.

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!"

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold..."

Thank you Bob for everything, you've touched more lives then you'll ever know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VRGANguGQE

Love the sails

February is starting out great for windsurfing. Had a couple of good days this week and the forecast looks great for next week.
I've got some time on the new Fires and they're awesome. The best wave sail I've ever used. They're built well and can take a beating. For 2010 they have a little more shape in the bottom of the sail then last years. More shots to come. Thanks for the shot Bob.