Savannah Wins First Place in the Rip Curl Grom Search

Rip Curl Grom Search 2008

I have never been very keen on surfing with sharks, but when I found that the Rip Curl Grom Search was going on this weekend at New Symrna sharks went to the back of my mind and I was ready to surf a contest for the first time in awhile. I knew that New Smyrna almost always had a decent sized wave so I was stoked to be going.

I was up and ready at 5:45 in the morning and we hit the road hoping to be the first ones there so I might get into the contest as I was the first alternate. I got lucky and got in to the only slot that opened up. The waves were not as great as I was expecting but they were still a fun 2 - 3 ft. and glassy. I couldn't complain after trying to stay afloat on a longboard in Cocoa Beach for the last couple weeks since I came back from Mexico. I got a fun freesurf session in with glassy waves early in the morning, but by the time my heat rolled around at about 12:00 lunchtime the weather seemed to know that the girls heat was about to paddle out. Our luck, as soon as it was time for our heat, a storm came through and blew the waves to crap! I was unable to get a good enough wave in my heat, comming in third, and making it to the repercharge (death heat). In this heat there was four girls and only two would make it to the finals. The wind had calmed down again after my first heat but by the time the repercharge came around it was like a curse and a small storm came again bringing winds that once again put the waves in poor conditions. Never the less we all had fun in our heat and I got by with second place advancing on to the finals. By the time the finals came close I was sure someone was pulling our legs. As we all lined up getting ready to surf we looked back into the blackest storm of the day. They sent us out and we surfed our heat untill the last three minutes or so when we just started paddling around like maniacs trying to make it look like we were surfing when really we were just praying that the heat would end so we could run to our cars to escape the green lighting and hard winds. It finally did end and we all rushed to our cars not really knowing or thinking of how we did in our heat. I new I had a couple good hits but all I could remember was praying that the storm would hold off untill our heat ended. Finaly the storm passed and we got out of our cars to see perfect 3 ft. glassy little barrles (not that anyone but the minigroms could fit into them but they were still nice looking). Oh boy I need to have a talk with the weather man, maybe one day the girls will get lucky and score some good waves for a heat. At least I had an incredibly fun freesurf session afterwards.

Florida East Coast Surfing Photographs

East Coast and Central Florida Surfing Photographs (mostly) of Sebastian Inlet, RC's, Cocoa Beach Pier, 2nd light, New Smyrna, South Florida's Reef Road, Jupiter some of Central America and various other areas.

We hope you enjoy watching Savannah and her surfing friends grow up together and encourage parents and competitors to send us photographs with your stories to include on the site.

Here are some surfing pictures to look at now:

Hawaii Surfing 2007
Hawaii North Shore
Hawaii Part 2
Hawaii Part 3
Hawaii Part 4
Hawaii Part 5
Hawaii Part 6

Mexico Surfing 2008
This Years Trip
La Ticla
Santa Cruiz
Mexico Surfing 2007
Surfing Mexico 2007
Big Mexican Waves
Point Breaks in Mexico
Surfing Blahs of Mexico
Mexico Surfing 2006
Mexico Mainland Surfing
Mexico Surfing 2006
Mexico Surfing Adventures
Mexico Surfing Pictures
Mexican Girls Surfing
Tube Riding Mexico
Mexico Surf Sequence

Rip Curl Grom Search
2008 at New Smyrna

SIMA Surfing America
2008 USA Championships & Team Trials

2006 NSSA Nationals - South California
Point Mugu TubeQuest 2006 ESA Championships - Cape Hatteras
Cape Hatteras, NC, Surfing
Cape Hatteras 2008

More Photos and story on Wet Magazine's website of Savannah's Cape Hatteras Trip.