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by Aleix Sanllehy

First session

I couldn’t expect a better welcome in Pozo Izquierdo, as I am completely out of shape, the light conditions we had this weekend have been perfect for my comeback, I had two windsurfing session with moderate wind and small waves (nearly flat) and later on, the wind picked up, waves got a little bit better and I could take some pictures, here you have just a preview, but now I’m destroyed and I have to wake up early tomorrow, so I’ll post more pictures during the week.

By the way, big changes in town, there’s a new shop in Pozo Izquierdo, Jonas Carlson and Javi Espín just opened POZO WINDS.

I'm back

After 75 days away from Pozo, 68 of them spent out at sea, I'm back at home in Pozo Izquierdo, here you have a few shots from my last session just before leaving.

Secret spot (1)

Small conditions this weekend with an unusual wind direction, so we had to move to find the right spots for the conditions.

Vargas

Yesterday afternoon the wind was too gusty at Pozo Izquierdo and waves were perfect for a playmobil, so I went to Vargas with Aleix Sanllehy and Victor Fernandez, and just when whe arrived there, everybody was going out of the water, they were sailing in 4,0-4,2 with some fun waves, but just dropped (the wind and the waves), we decided to go anyway (Victor with 4,7 and Aleix with 4,5) it was a fun windsurfing session and we had the beach to ourselves.

Backside 360

Two days ago, I shooted this sequence of Aleix Sanllehy doing a nice backside 360, and I asked him to explain the maneuver himself, thesse are his words:

First of all I would like to clarify that we are facing a move considered as part of the last generation in waveriding, from the Shaka in freestyle but incorporated to the wave, being called then Backside-360 or Shaka in the wave.

The first step is making the correct selection of the most hollow part of the wave, finding in it a good wall to lean against it, allowing to complete the maneuver in the wave and not at the back.

The next and crucial step is the famous hip hit, that is essential to allow the rotation of the maneuver, at the same time your head looks towards the point at which you want to rotate in order to complete the rotation, because you have to know that where the head goes the body will follow.

It is also essential to move your back hand to the end of the boom, so you can keep the sail against the wind pushing gently with the back hand to control the sail and overcome the 360 degrees rotation needed to complete the maneuver.

If you have these three points in mind and train a lot, you will end up getting the "timming" needed to feel the wave which is what will allow you to complete the maneuver and will make you feel very satisfied to successfully overcome this difficult yet rewarding, nice and spectacular maneuver.

Go for it !!!

See you in the water !!!!

PS: the original words from Aleix were in spanish, I did my best to translate it, but I'm affraid the final ressult is not as good as it should, for the ones who preffer the original words in spanish, here they are:

En primer lugar me gustaría aclarar que estamos frente una maniobra considerada de última generación en el mundo del Wave, procedente del Shaka de Freestyle pero incorporada en la ola llamándose Backside-360 o Shaka en la ola.

El primer paso para realizarla es la correcta selección de la parte mas hueca de la ola, encontrando en ella una buena pared donde podernos apoyar, permitiendo así poder terminar la maniobra dentro de la ola y no fuera de ella.

El siguiente y fundamental paso es el famoso golpe de cadera el cual es esencial para permitir la rotación de la maniobra junto con la cabeza, buscando de nuevo el punto en el cual queremos rotar para así poder realizar todo el giro ya que tenemos que tener muy claro que donde va la cabeza va el cuerpo.

También es imprescindible llevar la mano de atrás un poco retrasada, así podremos mantener la vela contra el viento empujando con suavidad con la mano de trasera para poder acabar de rotar los 360 grados necesarios para terminar la maniobra.

Si tenemos estos tres puntos en la cabeza y entrenamos muchísimo, nos encontraremos que poco a poco vamos consiguiendo un “timming” al unísono con la ola que nos permitirá finalizar correctamente la maniobra y nos hará sentir muy satisfechos de salir airosos de esta difícil pero a la vez gratificante, espectacular y bonita maniobra que uno puede realizar.

Ánimos y adelante !!!

Nos vemos en el agua.!!!!

Knee high (part 1)

Here you have a few more pictures from the freeride session we had this afternoon at Pozo Izquierdo, where the local crew made the most of the mushy knee high waves breaking on the sandbar where I was standing up with my camera (inside de housing, of course), so I did not even had to swim to be where the action was.

More pictures tomorrow.

More photos from last week

A few more pictures form the windsurfing action last week at Las Salinas.
I'll post the ones from the afternoon session tonight.

Pozo down the line

Yesterday, with a long period WS swell and wind from the South, we had such a fun down the line windsurging session just 200m away from Pozo Izquierdo.

Pozo Izquierdo from the water

We had a few fun days last week at Pozo Izquierdo and I had a couple of nice sessions taking pictures from the water, this day in particular was a little bit crowded, so I could take a lot of pictures but I also missed some nice shots, I was specially unlucky with Omar Sanchez, who was one of the infrom windsurfers of the session, but beacuse of drops or focus issues, I missed a couple of really good jumps just in front of me.

On the other hand I shooted a really nice sequence from Eleazar Alonso, you can see the sequence here.

And of course, if you want to see more of my windsurfing pictures, you can visit my website: www.danimiquel.com

Drops

Action sports photography is not an easy job, you not only have to control the elements of a regular photo, but you have to do it fast, in fact it's no chance to go fast, you have to take decisions before the action happens (when you see it, it's too late to shoot), but if you try to do that while you're swiming in the ocean, with strong wind and waves, then you have a feew extra difficulties; if it's not enough to keep in focus and in a good frame somebody moving fast, try to do it while swiming, but that's not all, then you have the drops, AAAGHHH, THE DROPS!!!.

Fortunately, in this photo, the drops are not on the subject, so the picture could be acceptable, but for some reason (Murphy's law, I guess), drops tend to be just in the middle of the subject most of the times, from this same session I had to discard a couple of good shots because of that.

www.danimiquel.com