Windsurfing in Egypt.
I had to make a separate post for the windsurfing photos as there were just too many taken in Egypt! Dahab is an incredible place to sail and over 2 weeks we had conditions from super light to nuking +35 knots and sailed in many locations from the flatwater freestyle spots of Speedy Bay and Kamikaze (near the surf-clubs in the tourist areas) to driving north past the famous dive locations like Blue Hole, to find our own private reefs! I brought with me all my new Starboard iSonics to test and a bunch of sails from slalom to wave kit. Travelling with me was Markus Bouman and of course as always, the 400kg we managed to check-in for FREE with AlphaStar airlines also included all the camera gear I could muster.
Sadly, I lost one of my small cameras when I stupidly let a tiny piece of hair fall in to the waterproof housing which broke the seal whilst I was snorkelling (hello, waterlogged camera) and also took a full-wave over my Canon 7D which did actually manage to survive somehow! Good times. Enjoy the pics!
Shred Gybes, Ride Camels
This is a video I shot on a recent trip to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. Travelling with some Dutch and Polish friends, we spent 2 weeks based in Dahab then with an old-school rented Jeep, we travelled as far as we could north in to Bedouin country to explore this amazing country and culture. Dahab really is an amazing place to windsurf with plenty of reefs and secret spots you can get to by car; windy everyday and still with the revolution fresh in everyone’s minds, there are barely any tourists around.
Most of the footage was shot by Markus Bouman (NED-6) and myself, completely handheld (tripod broke and we couldn’t get a slidetrack or dolly on the plane).
We used a combination of Canon 7D, Canon SX210 and a GoPro HD for the moving car and helmet-cam shots. No housings were used during shooting and as a result we nearly wrecked all 3 cameras!
The sequence of me throwing a hat and sunglasses on whilst standing on the roof of our villa is actually a series of 257 individual photographs I processed with Topaz Adjust 4 plugin in Photoshop and stitched together.
Go to Egypt one day and ride a camel. You won’t be disappointed.
Music used is “Complacency No Vacancy” by a favourite Australian band of mine called Children Collide.
Journey to the Middle East!
Looking for some places to do some slalom training before the PWA Pro Tour event in South Korea next month, I discovered my good Dutch buddy Markus Bouman’s family has a house in Dahab, Egypt. 12 hours drive from Italy later I was sitting with Markus in Warsaw airport with 400kg of windsurfing gear and ready to go stalking camels.
We got super lucky with this trip, as the wind was perfect nearly every day of our 2-week stay. The house is away from the tourist areas where the surf-clubs and hotels are located, in the Bedouin town of Assalah, so we really got an opportunity to explore this amazing culture, away from the cliche tourist perception of Dahab. We rented a very old-school and falling-apart jeep, and despite the fact we spent more time learning how to Macguiver broken engine parts back together, we got amazing opportunities to drive north through the desert and windsurf in places no tourists have likely windsurfed; our own private reefs with only desert Bedouins for miles and miles. Mix in some snorkelling, camel rides, parties with the plethora of English tourists who frequent this town and plenty of late night Vodka escapades with our Polish friends and this was a perfect way to spend two weeks. Stay tuned shortly for the windsurfing pics and some movies that we shot during our stay…
Wet Republic Party @ MGM
On the last Friday of the Las Vegas Trip the Vegas boys and I decided to hit the Wet Republic pool party at the MGM Grand. For those that have never heard of Wet, it’s a dedicated day club housed in and around 3 large pools in a venue inside the MGM grounds. It’s home to some of the craziest pool parties, world renowned DJ’s and if you check out their website, you’ll see the list of international moviestars and sporting celebrities who host their birthday’s there is simply incredible. We managed to score one of the VIP Cabana’s with some of our hookups and ended up having one of the best day’s out ever. All my good friends, all the sun, all the lounges, all the girls. Yeap. Will need to come back at some point with wind turbines and host a freestyle content there.
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
About one year ago, a really good friend of mine from school announced he was marrying his sweetheart. In an incredible act of genius, he announced that in 1 year from that day, he’d take his best mates to Las Vegas for one kick-ass bachelor party. Insert 14 of my best and oldest friends, 15 hour plane rides from various parts of the world, 14 Hugo Boss suits; and this is what happened when that day finally arrived!
New York, New York casinos. One of the biggest and right next door to MGM Grand where we stayed.
Our mate getting married on the left; the reason we all went to LV.
Firing an M249 S.A.W. at a firing range in old town. Apparently civilians can buy these guns!
Nick and me being awesome everywhere we went.
A genuine Buick RoadMaster Estate Wagon. With wood coloured wallpaper so thick you can smell the vanish.
Americans really know how to do sneakers.
The mega fountain outside the Bellagio Casino. Right next door to the Cosmopolitan casino (my personal favourite).
The Las Vegas Wranglers. We watched them claim victory at the Fiesta Rancho stadium. Ice-hockey is such a cool sport.
We also caught the NAMAUU vs BARRAGAN fight at the Rio the next night.
Wild times everywhere we went.
With 14 of us, limos were a necessity and used frequently.
Lazing by the pool after breakfast was always worth it.
So after only 5 days in Las Vegas I’m fairly sure we ticked off everything to do there, in and out of the casinos. We managed to see ice-hockey, boxing, Cirque de Soleil, David Copperfield’s show, the awesome ‘Bodies’ exhibit at the Luxor Museum as well as drive downtown to see the 900m rooftop tv-screen at Freemont Street, visiting the Gun Store to fire obscenely big machine guns and also hit the greatest clubs on the planet such as Wet Republic at MGM, Marquee @ Cosmopolitan and even managed a few of us to get in the semi-finals of the Blackjack competition at the upstairs Playboy Club. I think Las Vegas might just be my favourite place ever….
More photos on Facebook if we are friends right here.
Last Days Training on Tenerife
Not much wind for the last few days of my trip to Tenerife so most of the time was spent with the Point-7 Pro Team running up the mountain next to El Medano where we were staying and a few sessions out on the big sizes of the new slalom gear. Here are a few snaps of the team out on the water and on the flight back to cold Italy.
Big Bird in Las Americas
We’re currently out on Tenerife, Canary Islands at the moment with the Point-7 Pro Team getting some training in and shooting some videos. For the past 5 days there has been ZERO wind so a few of the boys thought we’d go and check out the nightlife in Las Americas, the bigger town on the opposite side of the island to where we’re staying. I don’t think I saw one Spanish person all night; plenty of clubs, tons of people out, but all just English tourists here on cheap holidays and most of them were in fancy dress. Say hello to Big Bird, some NFL giants and a lot of guys dressed in Morph suits. WTF.
New boards at FoxSports
Today we visited FoxSports in the north of Holland to pick up some new iSonic slalom boards! FoxSports are the Starboard importers in the Netherlands and there I picked up a brand new 90L and 107L to compliment my 127L for this season. It’s a good feeling picking up new gear; keen to get them on the water next week in Italy. A carton of beer for the boys at Fox for their troubles and we were on our way…
SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL + SLAYER.
My final week at home in Brisbane for the summer I decided to head to a massive Rock/Metal music festival in Australia called Soundwave. Headlining were bands like Iron Maiden, Slayer, Primus, Slash, 30 Seconds to Mars, Queens of the Stone Age, Rob Zombie and about 1 billion others. It was a stonking 37 degrees all day with no shade anywhere and thousands of Brisbane’s metal fraternity arriving in their tattoos, piercings, rebellion and Jack Daniels to see what the day had to offer. My highlight was the deathpit for Slayer.
Joshes Birthday Bash.
A good friend of mine Josh, had a bash on Friday night for his birthday. The venue was a cool bar in Brisbane called Jade Buddha; right in front of the river overlooking the city. We came, we rocked the place, we left. Here’s the only 5 photos that didn’t turn out blurry.
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Sean OBrien: Really good! I love it! So easy to ride and great...
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Rafa: How´s the new 167 wide beast going? I can´t wait t...
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matt2000: you should have checked out the windsurfing scene...
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