World Tour Girls Surfing Oceanside Photo Gallery, 2007

A Bright Day in the Summer of No Sun - World Tour Girls Surfing Oceanside - Photo Gallery

All Photos: Chris Grant/JettyGirl.com

A Bright Day in the Summer of No Sun - by Chris Grant

In all my years of surfing, the summer of 2007 has to go down in the history books as having the grayest, gloomiest weather on record in Southern California, a condition not helped in the least by weeks and weeks of dismal surf conditions. Then came July 30th...

The day dawned like any other...sharing a big bowl of cereal with my grom, a quick email check and a few phone calls to the local lifeguard stations for the morning surf conditions. With not much surf in the county I resigned myself to a solid day of "real" work in my day job as an insurance agent (cough, cough). Trading my boardshorts for a pair of slacks, I readied myself for an exciting day of insurance calls.

My thoughts of the day ahead were interrupted by the familiar buzzing of an incoming text message.

Stoked! It's Kyla Langen...

"Let's go shoot. Bec Woods and Beardmore are here too."

For today at least, insurance sales will have to wait. I've never had the chance to shoot with Australians Rebecca Woods and Sarah Beardmore and these opportunities don't happen everyday. Plus, I don't ever need an excuse to shoot with Kyla and Kim Mayer, two girls who not only rip but were influential in the launch of JettyGirl a few years back.

Another text arrives...

"Yeah Chris, let's meet at the Harbor."

Driving over the oft washed-out bridge that spans the San Luis Rey River, I caught my first glimpse of the swell. To my surprise, two-to-three foot peaks were breaking up and down the beach from South Jetty to North Jetty. Even more shocking...the big ball of fire in the sky was already starting to burn off the morning's marine layer. It wasn't going to be a crisp, Santa Ana wind, Kodachrome type of day but at least we had light.

After a unanimous vote to hit it, the next challenge was finding a parking spot in Oceanside Harbor's construction zone. Upon entering the South Jetty lot, I soon realized this was going to be a special day...

As I glanced to the left and right for an open spot, a familiar face darted between the cars.

"Bevo! What are you doing here?"

"Can't talk mate, see you out there," she said in that distinctly Claire Bevilacqua way.

Yes, I thought. Kyla, Kim, Rebecca, Sarah AND Bevo? It's going to be a great day!

I continued to make my way through the parking lot and my good fortune improved even more when I saw WCT'ers Rochelle Ballard and Megan Abubo running down the beach.

There's no way all of these pro surfers could be down here unaccompanied by a bunch of A-list photographers, I mused, could they? (Unbeknownst to me in the parking lot, Kassia Meador, Lyndsay Noyes, and pro skater Violet Kimble were also in the all-star crew).

Long story short, nobody was on the beach shooting that day besides me...a truly lucky break. And although it was on-again, off-again sun all morning, July 30th was truly a bright day in the summer of no sun.

Format: Flash

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Caption Index

1. Brightening up a gray summer day, Rebecca Woods lights it up in Oceanside.
2. Small surf, big turns. Kim Mayer applies the pressure.
3. Banking hard off the incoming section, Megan Abubo.
4. Kyla Langen getting the tail loose.
5. First stage of a frontside reverse, Lyndsay Noyes.
6. Sarah Beardmore glides across a summertime left.
7. Rebecca Woods has the smoothest style.
8. Amongst a frenzy of shortboard ripping, Kassia Meador casually noserides a nice left.
9. She probably prefers macking Sunset to waist-high Oceanside. Still, Rochelle Ballard rips the small stuff too.
10. Frequent Oceanside visitor, Claire Bevilacqua, stamps an exclamation point on a mushy Harbor right.
11. Pure muscle and not afraid to wrestle. Claire Belivacqua.
12. Megan Abubo rips on a longboard as seen here on Kassia Meador's noserider.
13. Fins free. Rebecca Woods.
14. Fins free again, this time courtesy of Kyla Langen.
15. Rebecca Woods on one of the better waves of the day.
16. Bec calls it a day. Until next summer...

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