Date of Birth: June 29, 1990
Best Known For: Being an east coast grinder
Local Spot: Vah Beach
My Crew: Ricky, Philip, Bishard, Floyd, Marty, and Strangey
Board of Choice: 5’10” Yinger glass-ons
Dream Wave: Get Barreled to turn, then barrel again then air.
| My Top Five: | 1.) New Surfboards 2.) Winning a contest 3.) Surfing good waves with your friends 4.) Andy Irons 5.) Being friends with cool people |
It's still happening in HB. Video: Tom Aiello
Michael Dunphy and Brandon Guilmette cut through the fog. Video: Tom Aiello
After getting fun waves in El Salvador last month, I have been doing some fun east coast surfing and contests non-stop for the past month. It started out with the east coast surfing championships in Virginia Beach. The waves ended up being very fun courtesy of tropical storm Danny. I was in bed all week with a small version of swine flue, but was able to watch Aaron Cormican continue his usual dominance on the final day and take the victory. Here is a link to check out the article I wrote on the event..
http://surf.transworld.net/photos/cormican-wins-47th-annual-ecsc/
After ECSC it was off to Belmar, New Jersey for the Fins Pro Junior. For the first day of the contest the waves were super fun, with head high peaks up and down the beach. Unfortunately, the waves dropped off for the finals day but I was able to grind to a 3rd place finish in the Pro Junior Final.
Next up was the WRV Hurley OBX Pro in Nags Head, NC. Asher Nolan, Balaram Stack, and I all drove down from VB straight into some very fun waves the day before the contest started. The swell held up for the whole event, with Asher and Michael Powell both making the final and taking 2nd and 3rd respectively. Asher, Balaram, Matt Kechele, and I all stuck around at the ESM house in Avon for the week after and scored some super fun waves all around the lighthouse and s-turns. Check out easternsurf.com in the next couple weeks for an update on our trip.
New York was the final stop on the east coast contest grind off series. We all flew up thursday night with the contest set to run FRi, SAT, SUN, but the waves stayed flat for Friday and Saturday, making event organizers cram it all in on Sunday. The waves popped up to a fun 2-4 ft south swell with clean conditions. I was able to win the Pro Junior division with Jeremy Johnston taking home the mens crown.
All and all it has been a fun month of contests and surfing along the eastern seaboard. With hurricane season about to wrap up and winter getting close, it's about that time to escape the East Coast!!!
After a long five weeks of contests, traveling, and surfing, I am on my way home to Virginia Beach for the town's biggest contest surf of the year, ECSC. Here is what I have been up to since my last post.
After watching local Huntington beach hero Brett Simpson destroy everyone in his path to a hard earned $100,000 at the US open of Surfing, Brandon Guil"NoNeck" and me got motivated and decided it was time to start training with Kevyn Dean at DSC. It payed off a little as I was able to win the Sun Diego and Volcom contests in between our weekly training sessions. I was able to make $1,500 between the two contests and was now on my way to El Salvador.
The trip was set up by video guru Aaron Leiber, the producer of The Pursuit, in the search for footage for his next film. The trip consisted of Andrew Doheny, Dillion Perillo, Balaram Stack, Chris Waring, and the Thompson bros which made for some very exciting surfing. We also had Joe Foster there to document all the photos. We were able to time two different swells perfectly which made for overhead surf everyday of the trip. We surfed non stop for 8 days straight at Las Flores, Punto Mango, and Punta Roca. A great way to spend a week in Central America! — MD
