It was a rainy Saturday morning, when we headed out to Izola at the Slovenian coast for the first Slovenian Surf Festival. Looking at the radar picture before leaving, I was puzzled. The weather report had been bad but it had not been that bad. Regardless of that, there was work to be done. Way back in May Anja, one of the writers for the surf magazine asked if I would photograph the event. Since then a few other things that come up and in the end it seemed that we would also have to film the event for one of our local television stations. Since the weather was bad the reporter from the station bailed so we didn’t have to do that much work. After all the primary idea for the entire thing was just to have some fun and make a few nice pictures while being at it. As I didn’t want to do all the things by myself. I enlisted my friend Matic to join me for the fun.
Our Organizers 🙂 the “wind girls”
The Venue
So we filled the back of my car with tons of the video equipment and had out into the rainstorm. Of course it was not only us as some of our friends also joined up. Later on that proved to be quite a good idea because there were also tons of free goodies to be had. Some more deserving than others. There has been quite some coverage of the event over in other media. You can check it out here and even on conitinent seven 😛 .
The winner posing XD
The highlight of the event was the tow in competition. Nine Slovenian riders contested for the first prize. Each and every one of them had two runs, two tricks to show what he’s got. And then the first prize went to Ziga Korenc who landed both his tricks. Second place went to our local Slovenian PWA contestant Andraz Zan.
Another lucky winner 😛
Next to that are also slacklines, balance boards and other stuff to check out. Hell I was so busy that I even forgot to get myself something to eat. The rain came and went a couple of times and it was surprising to see that so many people had shown up despite the bad weather. At one point the static from the storm was so bad that all our hair was standing up. It looked really funny and kind of got me worried about lightning strikes in public places.
Regardless of all that for a first the event went smoothly. Prizes were given out, people were having fun and we all got to see some friends that we hadn’t in a while. Unfortunately, though there was no big after party since the weather cancelled the local olives and wine festival. Also, I didn’t hang out with some of my friends who I wanted to catch up with, but managed only to say hi to some, but it is funny when you get a call at 2 AM asking you where anything is going on. I guess some thing never change 😛
The good thing about the easy after party in good company, was that I even managed to get the pictures out at somewhere after 2 AM on Sunday morning. Special thanks also go to Andrew and everybody else, who came all the way just to chill with us and have some fun! I sincerely hope to see more of this event next year.
Also, the surf magazine is going to be running an extensive article on the entire event in the next issue, so be sure to pick it up at your local newsstands.
Ziga and Andraz
But of course this wasn’t the only thing we did at the seaside. On Sunday the weather turned out great, there was some mild southern wind, and I got to test the STARBOARD RIO S board on a 7.8 Sail. More on that in the next post.
