Team Surfing USA Completes 110-Mile Paddle
by Zach Weisberg Online Editor

It has begun.

At 8 AM on Thursday, June 18, 2009, Laird Hamilton and Team Surfing USA shipped off on the first leg of their amphibious trek across America: a 110-mile standup paddle from Paradise Cove in Malibu to Oceanside in San Diego. Despite months of preparation and training, as with anything, you can only plan for so much.

“When the rock star went in the wrong direction at the launch – that hurt us a bit, for sure,” says Laird Hamilton of Rage Against The Machine bassist Tim Commerford’s inadvertent paddle a half-mile in the wrong direction at the start. In Commerfod’s defense, with no boats leading the way and no visible coastline nine miles out to sea, the path to San Diego appeared hazy at best. “But we got through to Long Beach ahead of schedule and got in to Oceanside about 4:30 in the morning. Once we got past the cross chop and side wind that affected us in the morning, we started hauling – up to 8 or 9 mph at our fastest, but the overall average was probably 4.5 and 5.5 MPH.”

Though certainly a grueling quest, the paddle came with a few good omens along the way.

“We saw a blue whale and some sunfish jumping, and then when the wind came up against our back and the swell joined us and we had a beautiful sunset,” says Laird, but according to Hamilton some of the most memorable paddling came after dark.

“Paddling at night was a great experience; for some of the crew it was their first time paddling in the dark at 3 AM dealing with balance and motion and lack of visibility. Everyone usually comes away with a pretty great experience just being out on the ocean at night.”

With the first substantial task out of the way, Team Surfing USA is chomping at the bit to get out on the road.

“I just want to get on the road riding,” says Hamilton. “Everything leading up to it seems like a drag, and then once you’re out there and your heart is pumping and the adrenalin is going you realize why you went through it in the first place.”

Check back to SurferMag.com for live updates from Team Surfing USA, as the crew hits the open road Saturday at 2 PM.