The 4th Annual Punta Sayulita Longboard and SUP Classic took place this past weekend. After a couple of years of laughably tiny surf for the contest, head high sets and plenty of waves were a welcome sight for this year’s event, although short intervals between swells and a blasting onshore wind that came up around noon both Saturday and Sunday made conditions challenging, with plenty of chop and big, messy waves to contend with, especially for those competing in afternoon heats.
Before going any further, I want to editorialize for a moment. What follows is a personal opinion only. As you can see in the photo of the wall-to-wall crowds on the beach, this has become a BIG EVENT. Tents and trucks and kiosks and banners and all the other elements of corporate sponsorship were everywhere, a big production rock n’ roll concert took place on the beach Saturday night, pretty girls in tiny bathing suits handed out assorted surf related toys and drinks, and so on and so forth…basically, heavy-duty commercialized surfing pretty much overran Sayulita for 72 hours.
I know it’s just once a year, and I’m really happy for the local surfers who are doing well as professionals—there are a few from Sayulita who are out there on various international SUP and surfing circuits–but this event, for the second year in a row felt inappropriately overscale to me. As much as I like to watch good surfers in action, and as much as I admire the positive side of the surfing community, I don’t think a commercialized surfing event like this does anything to enhance Sayulita’s qualities as a place to visit, especially for those not interested in surfing. Or even for surfers looking to get away from the crowded and aggressive surfing vibe they live with day to day, wherever they live. On the contrary, I overheard several visitors expressing dismay at the overwhelming size of the mob on the beach. It felt like somewhere in southern California. Call me a reactionary or a provincial, but this kind of energy is what I came here in part to get away from.
Enough said, and on to the show. Decent-shaped and sized waves, at least in the morning heats, produced some outstanding surfing, both longboard and SUP, and the paddleboard races, of which there were several, also provided plenty of thrills. The 4-lap Elite Race that took place Saturday around noon, with dozens of men and women hitting the surf with racing paddleboards to maneuver through a close-to-shore course, was quite a production, a chaotic, colorful, dangerous “bumper board” spectacle as boards and people and buoys crashed and banged around each other as they maneuvered through the waves, paddling out and paddling/surfing in. There were plenty of close calls, and a few black eyes and bruises, but, thankfully, no serious injuries.
Local paddlers Ryan Helm and Fernando Stalla were both at the top of their games, Nando taking first in the above-mentioned Elite Race, and third in the 10K Distance Race to San Pancho and back (a brutal workout in the howling headwind they faced heading north); Ryan pulled the same trick, bagging a first in the 10K Distance Race and a third (missing second by less than a second) in the Elite Race. Marta Diaz, one of our local paddling women, took first place in the 2.2K Fun Race; on the men’s side, Sayulita’s own Hector “Papas” Gonzalez also took first in the same race.
On the SUPsurfing side, locals Nando, Tigre, and Ryan Helm bagged second, third and fourth on the men’s side, while Karen Jacobsen got second in the women’s. In the “Old Boys” SUPsurf meet, our one and only SUPsurfing dentist Roberto Conti came in third, while Sayulitan Joel Barrazza got second in the longboard surfing competition. All in all, an excellent showing by the local crew. The rest of the results are listed below.
Friday, the day before the competition began, a bunch of surfers did right for the community by working on beach clean-up, and also by participating in a Therasurf session which gave several special needs kids a chance to get in the water and ride some waves. It was a sweet thing to see these surfers take the kids out and help them to play in the ocean. There is nothing so welcoming, spirit-raising, even therapeutic, as playing in and riding on the ocean—any surfer can attest to that—and this was a special treat for some special people.
All the rest of it went as planned. Good show, Saturday night, from Mishka. Plenty of booty to grab from all the commercial sponsors. Autographs from various surfing stars and starlets. Hordes of beautiful people to watch on the beach. Hopefully, plenty of action for the local restaurants, hotels, and other businesses who depend on tourism to stay alive.
We’ll see what next year brings. Personally I wouldn’t mind if this thing scaled down a bit, back to where it was in its first year, with more room for locals and less fly-in-the-star-surfers hype. But that’s not my call. All things considered, it was a good show.
