We survived! The US Open Of Surfing is finally over after 9 long days of impressive surfing. Making it through the weekend was a battle of all sorts, from finding places to sleep to winning heats with 11 time world championships in them... no matter what the latter is always difficult. It all figured itself out in the end of course. Julian Wilson is $100,000 dollars richer, I've got a few photos, a sore neck and a new swell just arrived (for orange county anyways).

With all the sponsors and people in town for the event the battles continued on into the night by way of partying. Since there was a party too good to miss each night you had no choice but to keep fighting. By fighting I mean drink more Red Bull, possibly some Jack Daniels, don't go to sleep till you find some nice floor space and do it all over again the next day. All this who-ha aside, I think the highlight of the evenings events for me was getting to meet Eric Koston, a living skate legend whose shoes I used to rock as a kid growing up and learning how to skate.

The women's champion Lakey Peterson stoked to come out on top.

The champ Julian Wilson stoked to make it all the way through to the bitter SWEET end.

After the event and before the final night of partying I made a brief escape down to Trestles. I decided to switch things up a bit; I brought it down from 500mm to 17mm and made my way into the water for glass off at sunset highlighted by some aerial events.

Until next time... keep sending it!