This past week I competed in the East Coast Surfing Championships. My goal heading into the event was to get another "keeper" result for my campaign towards the Western Atlantic Pro Surf Series. Coming into the event I was the Number one seed, so needless to say I was completely shocked that I had to surf through the Trials of the event. "Apparantly" the seedlist was determined by the order in which you entered, which was basically total BS, because I talked to several guys that entered well after I did that were seeded into the main event. I put all the negativity that I had towards this behind me and tried to use it as fuel for the event. This actually worked out perfect, because I had to surf through 4 rounds that were more stacked then the main event. So after making it all the way through the trials I end up going down in a heat that should have been a breeze really, I actually surfed really well and thought that one of my waves was around an 8.5 that ended up being a 5.5. After talking with the head judge, I had a better understanding of the score, but still felt it was a super low ball. I ended up sticking around for pretty much the rest of the event, and cheering on some of my friends, and doing some different PR obligations. It actually ended up being a very successful week up there, and we were blessed with insane surf thanks to the outer bands of Hurricane Danielle, so in all I was able to surf a ton and had a blast hanging with my friends up north. Just wanted to thank the Amazing Watts family for putting me up while I was there, you guys are awesome, it was a pleasure getting to know you.
On a side note, there were some really controversial heats during the event, and some real weird judging and rules applied, but no one was ripped off harder than Cody Thompson. He was definitely one of the most inform surfers of the event, surfing really good throughout the early rounds, and to have your run come to an end early, by a major judging error, had to be tough. WE ALL know you made that heat man, and I have never heard of a situation like that in my life....ha