Stand-Up Stampede SUP Race : October 10 (pics)

We are stoked to announce our inagural stand-up paddleboard (SUP) race, the Stand-Up Stampede, to be held on the Galien River in New Buffalo on October 10. Beginners and experts alike are encouraged to make the trek down to New Buffalo for a killer race on the beautiful Galien as the fall colors reveal themselves.

Pre-registration is highly encouraged to lock your spot in and ensure you get a radical race t-shirt...

CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF THE DETAILS AND TO DOWNLOAD THE OFFICAL REGISTRATION FORM!

Paddling the serene Galien in New Buffalo.

The Season Is Upon Us (pic)

For Great Lakes surfers, this is prime time. Warm(ish) water, tolerable air temps, and swell after wind driven swell may prove September to be the best month for surfing here. The tourists are gone and the weather is changing. Warm fronts, cold fronts, and bigger, steadier winds bring us the waves we patiently wait all summer for...time to take advantage before the cold of winter sets in.

For the photographers in the crowd, check out the West Wetsuit contest we have running on our forum (find it here). Snap a pic of someone you know in a West suit this fall and you could be the winner of a nice new piece of rubber.

Into SUP? Watch for news in the next day or two of our inagural Stand Up Paddleboard race - the Stand Up Stampede - to take place on October 10 in New Buffalo. We are geeked on the river course and think you will be, too.

Speaking of SUP, I've lost track of the number of times people ask us if we have used paddleboards for sale, or if we ever sell the demo boards. Good news for those folks; we will be announcing our big demo and new SUP sale to coincide with the Stand Up Stampede in a couple weeks. We'll post the list of boards, and pricing, sometime this week.

Wetsuits. Without them, we as a group of nutty lake surfers would be screwed. Fortunately, all of our fall gear has started to arrive and is available now in the Shop and in our Online Store . Get in touch with us if you need some new rubber this fall or winter.

Also in house, new boards from Rusty. And, we still have some of our limited 3rd Coast Surfboards in stock...they have gone fast and you can be sure to see more down the road. Speaking of surfboards, please accept our apology for not keeping the surfboards page of our site up to date. We have been busy and are still looking for the right web person to help us handle that load. I can tell you that our surfboard selection changes on a weekly basis, so if you don't see want you want online, shoot an email or phone call and we'll let you know.

Stay stokered, and see you in the aqua agua.

Fall fun. Photo: Seth Gudmundson

OBX Update #4 (pics)

Today is Friday, and we are slowly winding down the week in Hatteras. We still have today and tomorrow to surf but it's looking pretty small. Kind of nutty how it goes from huge to tiny in a few short days.

Burton ended up taking 2nd in the men's masters shortboard division. That would be second place out of all east coast competitors in that division - not bad for a lake surfer.

Hope you're enoying the photos...

Lester, our affable Aussie.

Rich was stoked to meet Dean Randazzo, Jersey ruler.

Yesterday's left.

And yesterday's right.

OBX Update #3 (pics)

The latest batch from the lens of Mike Killion, Great Lakes surf photographer extraordinaire. Good news today; Burton Hathaway advanced to tomorrow morning's masters' shortboard finals. I'll let you know how he does tomorrow. And, as usual, continued updates on the TCSS FaceBook page.

Until then, the rowdiness in Hatteras continues...

Cheers!

View from the house deck.

Who bodysurfs, anyways?

Sequence 1/2.

Sequence 2/2.

OBX Update #2 (pics)

These are all from Friday and courtesy of Mike Killion (http://www.greatlakessurfer.com/). We got it pretty good on the north end of the island before things got big, windy, and ugly. Hoping for more of this in the next few days...

Fun peak and warm water.

Burton tucking into a little tuber.

Insert self here.

South End Legend, Jim Hoop.

Outer Banks Update (pics)

Fresh from the digi camera of Red Rusty! The swell is peaking well overhead tonight into tomorrow morning as Igor skirts north off the coast, and NE winds are cranking in the 25+ range. We found a ride through the dunes and stumbled into some big, offshore surf.

More to come - follow daily updates on the Third Coast FaceBook page. In the meantime, enjoy these photos shot a few hours ago.

How big?

Shorebreak air

Great Lakes Surfing App (pic)

Woah...who would have thought? It was only a matter of time, and Mark has made it happen. Introducing the first Great Lakes surfing web app for your iphone or droid. Click here to get it.

Mark is looking for feedback, so try it out and let him know what you think.

Enjoy...

Hurricane Swell - On The Road (pic)

A small group of western Great Lakes surfers, including myself, leaves for the Outer Banks of North Carolina this afternoon. Jim, Lester, and Burton are competing in the Eastern Surfing Association's (ESA) East Coast surfing chamionships. Mike and I are along for the ride to surf and cheer our friends on as they represent the Great Lakes district of the ESA. Mike will also be shooting photos.

I've done this trip many times before and have always found surf, some years better than others. This year, however, could trump the rest as we have the possibility of seeing two distinct swells from two distinct hurricanes. The first is Hurricane Igor, and it's a heavy one, currently on the verge of category 5 with winds pushing 155mph. Right behind Igor is Julia, currently a category 3 heading to 4 (and possible beyond).

Could be interesting...

I'll have the camera and will update on the blog and our Facebook page as we go. Staying in a house on the beach with a group of lake surfers never dissapoints, and this time surely will prove no different.

Hurricane Igor. Yowks...

Fireball (pic)

From a recent dawn patrol on southern Lake Michigan...

Magic Hand (pic)

You are really missing out if you've never tried bodysurfing with a hand plane. It's incredible how much of a difference they make. Here are some Wegener paulownia shapes that we recently aquired.

We still have two available...

Release (pic)

South End photographer Mike Killion captured this sequence of the 8'0 Bluegill, mid spin, at a local jetty earlier this week. Finless fun...

A Framed (pic)

Our friends on the North Shore (Superior) scored Stony recently. Some call it the Holy Grail of lake surfing...

More fun at our friend Bob Tema's Superior Surf Forum here.

In The Nude (pic)

Our friend Rich likes to take his shorts off and go surfing from time to time. We hiked waaay into this spot on the first day of the weekend swell, so the beach was empty and the tourists nowhere to be seen.

Here's Rich on his backside (pun intended)...

The Youth

I was 20 when I first rode a wave. It was at a local beach that we still call home, and introduced to me by guys 10 years older. I remember that I was one of only a few younger guys down here at the time, and learned over the next few years that surfing in the Lakes seemed to be done mostly by guys that were older - late twenties, thirties, forties and beyond. There would be the occasional 'youngster' like me, but for the most part, it was ruled by our elders...and I am grateful to have learned the rules of the water that way.

These days, as more folks take to the waves on surfboards in the Midwest (weird, I know), the demographic is changing. We see it at the Shop all the time. The youth are coming, and it is refreshing to see. The guys I grew up surfing with are now bringing their kids down and there is more progression happening than ever before.

Blake is a recently turned 14 year old from Milwaukee, and a perfect example of the new youth movement in Great Lakes surfing. Here he is slicing backside across a well known right point on his new Bing Pintail Lightweight...

Photo: Ryan Bigelow

Seaglass (video)

GSI has teamed up with Tom Wegener on a new finless board project they are calling "Seaglass"...

Cleveland (pics)

Cleveland surfers are a different breed, for sure, and some of the coolest people you'll meet. It takes serious dedication to surf there and these guys are dead serious about it.

Our friend Scott, the man behind the recently released Out Of Place - a documentary on the Cleveland surfing scene (and winner of the 2009 New York Surf Film Festival) - sent over the links below to a local photographer's site. Needless to say after seeing the visuals, we were pretty stoked.

You can click here for a small portfolio of Billy Delfs' Cleveland surfing photos, and visit Billy's main site here.

Lake Chewbacca: one of the raddest surfers
to ever come out of Cleveland, Ohio.