Salinas 2011. Ten years of the longboard festival, and this year Joel Tudor brings his Duct Tape Crew to surf here. Suddenly everything seems to align in one of the best weekends we’ve had in its ten year history. Perfect waves, perfect weather and a perfect feel of family, friends, fun and longboarding.

It was a real pleasure to see some of the best stylists in the water. Justin Quintal, James Parry, Oliver Parker, Jared Mel are featured in this cut, and the rest of the crew coming soon.

Visit longboardsalinas.com for all the details, including the Joel Tudor Duct Tape invitational.

A festival that honours the free flow spirit of the 70s as well as Spain’s surfing pioneers. We got lots of peace, free love, vintage boards (plenty of original single and twin fins shaped in the 70s) and some very good and powerful waves on Sunday. Once again Saturday night was epic with, among other bands, the best cover band of The Doors I’ve ever seen: The Other Doors. Do not miss them if they play somewhere near you.

All the photos HERE.

And now we are just trying to recover from all this craziness. We’ve got a month to get rest our limbs, heal our sores and get plenty of energy for the biggest festival of the summer: the 9th Vans Salinas Longboard Festival. After last year’s success (almost 400 registered longboarders + their partners/friends/siblings/offspring/parents/dogs, etc…) this year the organization has extended the festival to four full days (July 29th – August 1st) and added a ton of extra stuff to do. Chris del Moro and Kassia Meador –among others- have already confirmed their presence as no one wants to miss Europe’s biggest longboarding event of the year. Will you?

A.C.L. stands for Asociación de Clubes de Longboard (Longboard Clubs Association) and it ran an amateur circuit of longboarding and festive events all over Spanish beaches a few years ago.  Some of these events have grown way beyond the A.C.L. such as the aforementioned Salinas Longboard Festival, while others have been one-year wonders. And it seems that 2010 will be interesting as, along the Salinas event in August, the Málaga Surfing Club and the local longboarding brand CeCe Surfboards are holding the Tarifa Noseriding Festival on Europe’s southernmost beach during Easter (1-4 april). Note that it is a mobile and noseriding-only event.

As I write these lines I’ve heard of other festivals that might be held all over the coast and that will be announced shortly. So… wax your logs, iron your hawaiian shirts and start training as soon as possible.

Niegà

All cool… but what about that last surf of 2009? Mmmm… fancy a little paddle race? The guys who run the Longboard Festival de Salinas are putting the first of what is expected to become a classic: the San Silvestre Surfera Playa de Salinas. On December the 31st grab your chunkiest board (all boards are accepted, from under 7’0s to SUPs) and paddle along a nice stretch of Asturian coastline in the company of plenty of like-minded friends, from the nearby Playa de Arnao to Salinas.

The inscription is free –at the Club Náutico de Salinas from 10am on the same day- and you’ll get a tee-shirt and some hot and steamy chocolate con churros on your arrival. There’ll be prices for the top 3 of each category and lots of that same joyful spirit that has made the Salinas Festival famous worldwide.

All the info HERE.

Niegà

Celebrating its eighth anniversary this past August, the Vans Longboard Festival de Salinas 2009 has clearly become much more than a longboarding contest: it is, now more than ever, a gathering of the longboarding clans.

It all started eight summers ago when a small group of longboarders from Salinas (near Avilés, one of the beaches with a longest surfing tradition in northern Spain) decided to organize a longboard gathering/competition among friends. They wanted their little meeting to somehow mark the start of the summer vacations, so they decided that it should always be held on the very first weekend in August, when 98% of the Spanish population starts its well-deserved summer break. That first festival was an extremely informal event, not subjected to the rules of any international or national surfing body (and still is… mainly) and with a lovely tradition that has grown exponentially over the years: La Fotona. La Fotona (the big photo) is a group photo of all the surfers who make the journey to Salinas, posing along the beach, one next to each other and standing proudly in front of their weapon (log) of choice. Lately, and because of the huge numbers of attendees, a front row has had to be improvised otherwise not even the widest lenses can capture everyone.

Guille‘s version of La Fotona 2009. For more pictures of Salinas by Guille check HERE.

Salinas has everything to offer: a longboard contest that runs along the rules of any other contest (mix of traditional and modern longboarding), a couple of expression sessions, several board tests, some entertainment for the children (many longboarders bring their whole families in tow), crazy music nights with life bands until the wee hours of the morning (after all this is Spain), a couple of barbeques (Hawaiian shirt recommended), a couple of surf flicks normally screened either on the beach or by the pine forest, a night surf session, a huge grass camping area and a village with sponsors tents.

Many a big surfing name has visited Salinas over the years: Beau Young, Alex Knost, Mitch Abshire, Joel Tudor, Tom Wegener… and that’s only from overseas, as many a top longboarder from France, UK, Portugal and Spain visit regularly. You want to surf by yourself on your first holiday weekend? Don’t come to Salinas. Point in case: this year up to 399 longboarders signed themselves in… on top of which you should add lots of girlfriends, wives, husbands, boyfriends and children. And in spite of the somewhat funky sandbanks -and a day of strong winds and rain- they surfed lots (some in heats, most not), they drank beer (lots) and they danced to the sounds of The Fakeband and the Kings of Makaha (Smile couldn’t play due to bad weather). On top of that they checked the visiting pros and their styles, they met their heroes (Tudor, Knost…), they learnt how to shape an alaia courtesy of Tom Wegener, they watched some movies (The Present, Picaresque…) and hung out with each other. It is so addictive that –every year- some of the usual suspects drive over ten hours just to be there that weekend… before driving back those same hours on Sunday night in order to be at work on Monday morning; they are part of that 2% of the Spanish population that doesn’t start their summer holidays on August the 1st.

So now you know: what started as a little gathering of friends has become the biggest longboard event in Europe. Maybe not for the prize money nor the points and the rankings, but for the stoke it transmits to all the attendees. And be warned: it gets highly addictive.

To watch some fo the best photos of the 2009 Festival de Salinas visit the gallery of local photographer Guille A. Pando HERE.

Niegà