After a rough flight from Bangkok to Paris with a throbbing ear infection I met up with Sean Poynter and we were ready for a trip that is going to get exciting real quick. We gathered all of our board and bags from Charles De Gaule airport onto a bus to the train station where we have one way tickets to Le Torche, only in the middle of dragging our boards through the train station a employee stops us and says, “where are you guys going, with these? If you think your getting on the train with them it is impossible.” And then he walked away. Sean and I have to make an alternate plan real quick because the train did not except boards that big let along two of them each. We ended up leaving our boards in the locker storage at the train station and spend a day back packing in Paris until Tristan and Quipo come up with a car that we will drive to Le Torche together in.

            We made the best out of our situations this journey to the Le Torche Pro and had no problem with touring a bit in Paris and checking out some crazy architecture like the Eifel Tower, and ate a lot of great French food! 

Sean and I stayed at a nice Hostile with ironically a group of 30 teen girls on a college trip from Holland there so it was not half bad.  The next morning we met with Tristan and he ended up giving us tickets to jump on the train with Quipo and he was going to take the burdon of driving up with our boards on his rental car with Buzzy Kerbox, and Guome from Tahiti.

             Quipo, Sean and I had a really fun train ride and after a quick four hours we came to Quimper train station where Tom met us to take us to Le Torche! I was eager to jump into the water right when we got there to test my new boards so I got geared and fin’ed up. The waves where small but it was so great to get back into the water and stand up surf, and especially be testing and riding my own Starboard pro model 7’7” x 27”. I met the local line up and every one was really cool and enjoyed having people from all over the world around sharing the Aloha of surfing. My ear was bothering me with my equilibrium all messed up from the blown ear drum staff infection, this was the one thing I was possibly worried about.

            The competition trials started the next day, with great riders like

Kirren Taylor from Australia and groms such as Casper and Kody Kerbox from Maui. Kody took the win for the trials congrats to him and the top four trialists that made it into the main event!

            We got into the main event quickly and the conditions were up for a few rounds. It was good conditions but I was only barely squeaking through rounds all the way through to the quarter finals and went down then, only to join the peanut gallery on the beach and cheer for my buddies. Sean Poynter did very well making it all the way to the finals and placing fourth place, Leco Salazarre in third, Antoine in second, and Kai in first.

Sean Poynter in the Finals!

Another great trip and more to come!! Olukai and Hawaii Battle of the Paddle right when I arrive home and then off to Tahiti for the next event of the Stand Up World Tour at Sapinus!

Aloha and a hui hou!