Ben Andrews is a li'l resilient bugger- he said he got washed in by a set at the beginning of his heat, so he battled right back out there turned around and took off late on this one. It looks like a surge went up the face as Ben was trying to drop in-forcing Ben off balance and even deeper! Surprisingly Ben did not get hurt as the lip crashed down on him and his RC, and he was able to join on in in da "sports casting booth" and talk about his experience, right after his heat. I applaude the li'l bugger's tenacity, right on Ben! All pictures by Brian L. Frank
Who is da nicest wave destroyer at da beach?
My vote is on Alex Martins. Alex consistently inspires and motivates with his surfing, yet is always humble and genuine to everyone. Alex is just as amped on surfing as when he was a grom, and continues to bring his surfing to new levels.
Alex took a little time to summarize his feelings on the recent Mav contest below, all photos are by Brian L. Frank. Also Alex sent us to this link to a nice short made about him and the contest by Vanessa Carr.
Alex, "I was really fortunate to get into this contest because everybody showed up except Brock Little who got injured at Waimea. I had done the contest in 2006 but the experience that I had this year was beyond my expectations. I've been putting my time in at Mavericks for a long time and training really hard, but what we saw on the Saturday of the contest was something totally different from what we usually see. It was the biggest and heaviest day that pretty much anyone had experienced paddling into. To make it through to the semi final was huge for me. I was really stoked about it especially because I won my heat, got the biggest wave of my life and almost made it through to the final."
My neighbor Brian, whom I watched grow up since he was that li’l punk on Lawton street to a very talented photographer who works for clients as diverse as The Wall Street Journal to Razon, gave me some shots of some of our team riders and friends from last weeks Mavericks contest. This first sequence I am going to post is of our team rider Ion Banner going big and late, and unfortunately getting a lot of air caught under his board. I tried to get a hold of Ion to hear more about this wave, but no luck. I know there is an article about Ion coming out soon that I will link when it hits- right on Mr. Banner! To see more of Brian’s work visit http://www.brianfrankphoto.com, he has some intense photos from the recent cartel clashes in Mexico. More photos soon.
