It seems like every man and his dog are hitting the wave pools at the moment. What's wrong with the good old fashioned point breaks? 

Maybe it's something to do with the youth of today, opting to sit inside and play Xbox instead of playing a friendly game of cricket in the backyard. Has it gotten so bad that surfers and stand up paddle surfers can't be bothered to paddle out the back through some white water? Does the salty sea water make their hair go too dull? Or is it that they want the same blank canvas of a wave every time? Who knows what the motivation is here, but there's nothing better than carving your way down Noosa's first point on an overhead day. And even with all the gazillions of dollars in the world, no wave machine could top a good surf at a decent break. 

Kauli Seadi's giving it a red hot crack though, and he's actually making it look pretty good too! Formerly of windsurfing fame, Kauli grew up with watersports on the brain and is no stranger to artificial conditions. He's windsurfers at several indoor events, famously landing one manoeuvre completely outside the pool during an event back in the early 2000's. There was no such tom foolery here though, with only a few wobbly starts and caught rails he slashed, carved and paddled his way back and forth from one end of the pool to the other. The Tenerife Wave pool is pumping out a good 4-5foot face which peels (almost) perfectly to the right and goes the whole way down the length of the pool. Not bad for only a few million bucks! 

Seadi posted a quick explanation on his blog:
"The idea started because we wanted to celebrate Ricardo's birthday with him, and he proposed us to go to Siam Park , in the south of Tenerife Island.
These water park normally is super packed they receive over 6500 tourists a day , and we had a contact from a Local friend Danny Bruch that took us already last year there to surf once the windsurf contest was finished . Anyway we called the Park and reserved a session on the wave pool. 
So once the park closes for general tourists , then they received us , and we had the chance to surf for one hour in between 3 friends on that pool that normally is completelly packed with thousands of people. That did cost about 10 euros a wave , so really , you try hard not to fall or miss a wave drop....ahahh!"

Check out the video below, and don't let the fact that it's in a pool deter you. It's actually one of the best artificial stand up paddle surfing video's around. 

#News #StandUpPaddle #Windsurfing