International Surfing Day 2010 hits the shores of St Pete Beach
by Thomas Paterek
This year on International Surfing Day, the Suncoast Surfrider Foundation hosted a series of events appealing to not only surfers but to the entire local beach community. Founded by Surfing Magazine and the Surfrider Foundation, the premise behind ISD is to designate one day out of the year to solely focus on Surfing and surfer’s local communities.
This past Saturday, the Surf Shack on St Pete Beach put on an all day concert complete with four local bands, thousands of dollars worth of giveaways and donated a ZAP skimboard for the local Suncoast chapter to raffle off. Local artist Cheeta Chad (Chad Ruis) entertained the entire crowd all day as he painted on a donated surfboard from Jake and Jessica Respondek. The Surfboard paint scheme was inspired by the events of the deepwater oil spill disaster, which upon completion was then raffled off to a lucky winner. The Suncoast Surfrider Foundation also raffled off two Jack Johnson tickets to cap off the successful and rockin night on St Pete Beach.
The following morning started with an invigorating Yoga experience with Mike Meehan on Upham Beach. Nearly a dozen participated in the free hour long Yoga session with the soothing sounds of thunder rumbling off the northern coast. After the Yoga teachings, close to thirty volunteers pulled up their sleeves to clean up trash on Upham beach. Co-sponsored by Lenny’s Surf Shop, over fifty pounds of trash was collected with awards given out to most unique, amount collected, and largest piece of trash found.
Following the cleanup, Surfrider members met up with the Suncoast Surf Shop to participate in a demo of one of the gulf coast’s fastest growing water sports: stand up paddle boarding. The demo invited many curious onlookers to see if they had the knack to get out on the water and ride a nearly eleven foot tall stand up paddle board.
In all, ISD 2010 was a complete success not only for the volunteers, artists, surf shops, and bands, but for the community as a whole. Thanks to all who participated and made this event a time to remember. To those new members, we look forward to sharing the experience with you next year.
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