Santa Cruz Paddlefest

Once again Jeff journeyed to Santa Cruz for the Santa Cruz Paddlefest.  Formerly called the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival, the festival is in its 29th year.

Conditions were very small for the preliminary heats but things fired up for the finals on Sunday.

Jeff hitting the lip.  Photo by Mark Boyd

Here's a video that Southern California Paddler Mark Sanders made of Jeff's heats.  Use the link to watch it on vimeo in high definition.

Definitely what we would call "chizzly" waves, but his second wave on the video looks really fun.

Surf students take note - Jeff doesn't pull off any dynamic maneuvers in this video but notice his positioning on the wave, awareness, looking where he wants to go, posture, shore side rudder, and edge control.

For more photos check out Santa Cruz Paddlefest on Facebook.

March - Sea, Whitewater, Surf Kayaking

What are your paddling plans for March?  We have been hunkered down working on our website and other business aspects of Liquid Fusion Kayaking.  Now, it is time to turn our attention to the real business of LFK - teaching.  

This Weekend we are excited to be coaching at the Storm Gathering USA in Trinidad, CA.  We will be teaching a variety of courses including sea kayak surfing, incident management, whitewater of the sea, rock gardening, and surf kayaking.   We are particularly excited to get to see Justine Curgenven's presentation on Kayaking the Aleutian Islands. 

Sea Kayaking in Trinidad, CA

The Second Weekend of March is the Annual Santa Cruz Paddlefest.  Formerly called the Santa Cruz Surf Kayak Festival, this is a fun event for both spectators and participants.  See some of the best high performance surf kayakers shred on a world class surf break - Steamer's Lane. The Cowell's Classic is a fun event for novice and intermediate surf kayakers to participate and surf the typically crowded Santa Cruz break with only 3 others.

Jeff in the 2007 Santa Cruz Surf Kayak Festival Photo by Alex Chong

The Third Weekend in March (March 21-22), Jeff will be coaching a 3 Star Sea Kayak Training in the Monterey Bay Area.  He did one of these in January and is back by popular demand.   We have a couple of spaces available if you are interested.  Here's a link to the syllabus.

On Monday March 22, Jeff will be conducting a 3 Star Sea Assessment.  The BCU 3 Star Sea Award is an internationally recognized achievement of sea kayaking skills.

Sea Kayak Training in Monterey Bay

And finally the last weekend of March, both Cate and Jeff will be teaching Whitewater Kayaking Class 3.  This class is for paddlers who have class 3 kayaking skills and experience but want to perfect and better their skills to run cleaner lines, surf more waves, carve in and out of eddies, and possibly boat on harder waters.  We will be teaching this on a Northern California Whitewater River - location to be determined based on water levels - course guaranteed to be fun and skill building.

Whitewater Kayak Class on the Eel River Photo by Mark Boyd

Whew - definitely looking like a busy month for us - sharing what we love with others in the sea, river, and surf.  Hope to see you on the water!