Oscar Chalupsky found a warm watery welcome in San Diego among the surfski clan.
Who is going to argue with the guy who has won 12 Molokai World Surfski Championships when he tells you to practice the basics over and over. To stop splashing, and keep your elbows down?
Chris Hill got my vote for best torso rotation on the ocean. Casey Owens and Jim Baumann were so focused they wouldn't have noticed a whale fluke at their stern.
Sharing the Epic brand with Chalupsky, fellow Olympian Chris Barlow, never stopped smiling.
Which of course was contagious. Even Jon Brindle was smiling. Some magical alignment of the stars and planets, I'm sure.
Barlow and Chalupsky paddled together at age 16 and 17. They don't look much older now.
One of the SDCKT paddlers, Michael Lowe, was one of the few 18 year old at last year's US Surfski Championships in San Fransisco. Watch for him again this year.
Barry and Danielle Borm tore it up: two generations spiriting a tandem.
Chalupsky scanned the ocean for a choice wave, promptly riding all the way to the beach.
Some, like Jon Anderson, Owens, Lowe and Barlow followed (and we never saw them again!) and most, like Debra Kettler, Tony Serafin, Alan Chalom, Ken Fry, Bruce Fincher, Nick Hanoian, David Reed, Frank Cavanagh, Sammy Barlow, Rose Sartuche, coach Heather Fenske, Brindle, Baumann, the Borms and Hill rode the sizeable chop half a mile out and back to the mouth of the channel.
Kim Hayashi in the hot seat behind Chalupsky added a full spectrum of color to the spartan palette of Epic white and ocean slate.
I felt proud of the paddlers on the beach, visibly itching to get on the water and put OC's training to work. They patiently soaked up every word, asking intelligent questions and remembering more than the predicted 10% of what he was teaching.....
....going through the drills all the way out the channel......
....and when there were no waves, grabbing the tail of a passing powerboat.
Sammie in the V12!
With one stroke of a pen OC turned a 21' boat into a 6' boat.
I heard they were singing late into the night at the after party....
See you on the water.
