Get High Or Die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th of May, I staged the first ever wave event to be held at Punta Blanca in Fuerte. My main goals with this comp were to get all the local riders together for a fun weekend of windsurfing and partying, and also to get every single competitor to push their own personal limits and reach a new level of sailing. To this end I devised a system of judging whereby each heat was judged by the riders from a different heat, according to their ability, a kind of handicap system, with riders who pushed themselves the hardest progressing through to the next round. The result was phenomonal! I have never seen such radical action at Punta in my 14 years of sailing there! In absolutely perfect conditions, we had guys sailing away from their first ever forward loops after only a few attempts, guys throwing themselves into doubles at every opportunity and all done with huge smiles all round. Wow, it surpassed all my expectations!
Will impressed everyone with his suicidal double attempts (he really was determined to get high or die!) and came away with 1st prize with Victor in 2nd and big Pieter in 3rd. Really, though, I could have awarded trophies to absolutely everyone as there were so many who sailed better than I have ever seen before.
After the heats, I held two expression sessions, with 15 in each heat, resulting in a jumping frenzy with all the local island hillbillies trying their utmost to kill or maim themselves, haha. Check the video and you'll see exactly what I mean!
After all the organisation I did, you'd have thought the gods would have been smiling down on me but, oh no, 1 minute into my quarter final heat, my mast foot broke and I spent the whole heat swimming back to the beach as my fellow competitors jeered me good-naturedly from the water. With friends like these, haha...............oh, well, next year, I'll fix it so I win.............
After the expression session it was back to the UTurn in Lajares for the prizegiving, filled to the rafters, and it was there where it was evident just how successful the weekend had been. Everyone was super-stoked to have been a part of it, and not one person whinged or whined about anything, which must be a first in the history of competition!!!
All in all, a greater success than I ever dreamed possible, already planning next year's..............
Greetings from the sunshine,
Gibson.

Get High Or Die!!!!!!!! from Stephen Gibson on Vimeo.