We´re back - La Malate 2008 - French TV helping to save the wave

What a weekend. The level of the Doubs was going up and we decided to hit the road. After 6 hours drive we arrived at La Scie (the upstream wave of La Malate) at 2 o`clock in the morning. We checked the waterlevel and it was already nearly optimal for the La Scie wave, which means "too high" (= not optimal) for La Malate. Therefore we stayed the night there and the next morning we got perfect level for La Scie. Besides we met again a lot of good old friends from France and Switzerland.
Unfortunately I wasn´t able to bring my own Riot Astro, therefore I had to paddle different boats, which wasn´t too bad, as checking the other designs is a lot of fun as well.
Besides the French TV came to get some footage about the efforts to save the La Malate Wave. Check the TV footage here: TV Clip

Here some impressions of the weekend:

Just after waking up. Tress standing in the water, in the front and in the background.

Taking a quick breakfast so we get on the water before the crowds arrive.

Also some Munich Surfers ripped the wave.

Warming up before the first session.

Getting used to the wave and boat.

Throwing a PanAm
Going for the pistol-flip

Somehow looks funny. Like I just got hammered into a cream pie ;-)

Simon doing his thing.

Mathieu going big.

"Old Man Jan" doing the sidekick.

Nice profile of the other Jan.

Sunset of the first day.

La Malate auto-bounce.

Sidekicking all the way.

Nice spray.

One of the best places to fly - the La Malate Wave.

On the third day the level at Malate had dropped 100m3 to around 400m3 and it was less big, less steep, quite flushy but still great. One advantage was that one could enter the wave via eddy-service and one hadn´t to worry about getting trashed in the whole next to the wave.

Much smaller but still enabling all moves.

After a sunny session it was time to head back home.

All pictures by Maria Stelzig