WET AND WILD WITH ROCKIN’ FIGNo fear at the pier last weekend

Well, summer is in full swing, and you can’t complain about the weather because it’s been great. The sunny skies have been giving us hot days on the beaches. There have been some up and down water temps but still pretty much on the warm side, and the best thing so far ? no red tide this summer.

Lots of stuff happening in the surf scene, as we just had the No Fear at the Pier Pro Junior Surf event, which picked up some pretty decent 2- to 4-foot peaky lines out of the south over the weekend.

Taking the win was Floridian Eric Geiselman, who was ripping it up big time. Geiselman’s been on a roll, placing in all five of the Pro Junior finals and winning three of them, which is incredible with all the hot talent.

Maui’s Dustin Payne, who just came off a great showing at the Nationals a week ago, pulled another second with some explosive moves. Third was fellow Hawaiian Westley Larsen from Lahaina, and rounding out the top four was Jacksonville Beach’s Cody Thompson.

Surfers in these surf contests are battling for four spots in their region to be invited to the A.S.P. Pro Junior Championships at Narabeen Beach, Australia, next January.

In the Air Show final, hot local Chris Waring busted out a huge front-side air ? no hander, 360 reverse ? and landed it and rode it out. The judges liked the futuristic move, awarding him a 9.0 score, the win and $1,000 in pocket. All the hometown spectators were cheering wildly for him.

The next event is the Lost Pro Juniors at the Huntington Pier at the U.S. Open July 21-30.

Down south in Mexico at Puerto Escondido they held the 2006 ESPN Summer X Games. The surf was pretty extreme ? 4- to 6-foot plus and barreling heavily.

It was East versus West, and the East has been dominating the West Coast the past few years, but not this time.

West coach Mike Parsons had a star-studded team that included former World Championship Tour star Pat O’Connell; the air-bustin’ Dane Reynolds; U.S. Champ Rob Machado; another former U.S. Open winner Shane Beschen; three-time world champ Tom Curren; the power master from Hawaii Pancho Sullivan; and Surf City’s top-10 world standout Timmy Reyes.

The East, with coach Matt Kechele, was led by world tour stars, the Lopez brothers, Shea and Corey; hot East Coast rippers Sam Hammer, Baron Knowlton, Kyle Garson and Ryan Helm; Puerto Rico’s barrel master Carlos Cabrerro; and the wild card Pipeline Masters winner Jamie O’Brien.

It was finally the West’s year as Sullivan got some of the meanest deep barrels, for the MVP honor, and Reyes received a huge 8.5 score to get the most radical maneuver award, to ice it. Not even the backside barrels of Shea and Cabrerro could stop the West from winning 103 to 73, with all the stacked up talent.

This event will be shown on ESPN at a later date. We’ll keep ya posted.

The Surfing America U.S. Amateur Surfing Championships started down at Oceanside last Tuesday in some fun shoulder-high surf at the North Jetty. Surfers from the East, West and Gulf coasts and Hawaii will compete till the weekend’s finals.

That’s it for now. See ya.