U.S. OPEN DAY ONE! (um, for the girls)

OK, I have to come right out and say it: Best part of the event for me, so far, has been Melanie Bartels’ surprise appearance. She always was my very favorite but when she seemed to fall off the earth and stopped showing up for World Tour events, it sort of left me heartbroken. I mean, how much talent can one girl have? Plus, you gotta love the dark horse, the seemingly badass attitude and with barely a single sticker on her board. She breezed through her morning heat — it was glassy, sorta peaky — perfect conditions for her spontaneity. I don’t want to jinx anything, but how cool would it be if she won? Damn. I always jinx it.

Alright, alright, enough of that. Steph Gilmore (of course), Sofia Mulanovich were among the other usuals to stand out in the first rounds but what’s most impressive are the unusuals who are still going. Little Coco Ho, Bethany Hamilton and Nikita Robb are set for day two on Friday and Santa Cruz surfer and all around awesome little lady, Kim Mayer, has just gotten further than she ever has at the Open. And then there’s the machine: Sally Fitzgibbons. The girl is 17, has already made the World Tour for next year and she’s on a roll. In fact, off the top of my head, the majority of the top 15 girls or so on the WQS right now are barely legal. Crazy.

Well, other than all the action in the water, the usual circus was abound. Tourists upon tourists wandering about, wondering what all the hubbub was, warding off some bad cases of sunburn. Plus some local flavor — the adorable Huntington Beach Junior Lifeguards were on their beach run right through the throttles of people on the sand all morning, sporting their freckles and blue, green, pink and yellow Zinka.

Aaaaand … the second best part of the event: Beers with the girls at Duke’s afterwards (the chilled Petron shots were so tempting). Luckily no one really had anywhere to drive.

Well, stay tuned.

– CS
Photo: ASP/Covered Images/Morris