I’m making sure I’m getting lots of rest now because it’s looking like it’s going to be a busy week. I’m off to Orlando bright and early on Thursday morning for Surf Expo. While Surf Expo is the industry’s premier trade show with all of the latest and greatest gear on display, there’s also a lot going on outside of the show. On Thursday night, Transworld Wakeboarding Magazine (yes, you’re reading that correctly) has their launch party at the Orlando Watersports Complex (OWC). Unfortunately, I think I’m going to miss out because my flight gets in late, but I’ll be getting some photos and gossip from the party.

The show itself kicks off on Friday and I’m really looking forward to seeing all of the new gear. I’ve already previewed the new Liquid Force line and it’s looking really good; I’m sure there will be lots of cool stuff to drool over. Friday night is the Wake Awards, which is one of the biggest nights of the year in wakeboarding. Virtually every pro will be in attendance to see who takes home the awards. I’ll be doing play by play from the awards via our Twitter page, so if you’re not following us be sure to sign up now. I had someone tell me last year that my updates made them feel like they were at the awards.

Saturday is the Byerly Toe Jam at OWC and I’ll be sneaking out of meetings at the show to take in all the action. There are four different categories this year: cable, wake, rails and winch. Judging by the qualifying rounds from last weekend it’s safe to say that the level of riding will be at an all-time high.

At some point over the weekend, I’m hoping to escape from the tourist hell that is International Drive and get out on the water somewhere. Sunday afternoon is looking pretty open, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Once again sign up to our Facebook page or our Twitter account to keep tabs on what’s going down over the weekend. And check back here for full updates and photos.

It was another early start to the day today with my phone ringing at 6:30 AM. It was Sean Kilgus on the line confirming we were still on to head out to the secret blue lake. He was a little concerned about the wind and the fact we still needed to get Danny Harf’s boat on the trailer so we could tow it to the location. He said get organized and head over to meet him at Danny’s as soon as possible. I shook out the cobwebs and organized all of my gear for an anticipated great day of shooting. Danny’s lake, Lake Minnehaha was looking a little blown out on the south side but the shoreline in front of Danny’s house on the north side was calm. There were a few barefooters getting their early morning sets in.

Already waiting at Danny’s was Kilgus, Bob Sichel and photographer Spencer Smith. There didn’t seem to be a lot of action going on and Kilgus was on his phone. He’s already left a few voicemails and texts for Danny, but there was no answer. Turns out Danny had gone to the Orlando Magic game the night before and then went out downtown to a few clubs. Rusty showed up a few minutes later and offered to break into Danny’s house, but he said there was no way he was going to wake him up. We waited a little while longer, but then final decided the shoot was going to be a lost cause. Kilgus was pretty ticked off and felt bad for getting everyone out of bed, but we made plans to head over to Rusty’s a hit some double-ups.

After a quick stop for breakfast, the crew reconvened at Rusty’s and headed down to the dock where his fully loaded Mastercraft XStar was waiting. Rusty made a quick call to his neighbour and commandeered a Malibu slalom boat for us to shoot chase boat photos from. Kilgus, Big Spence and myself hopped into “the media boat” and Bob jumped behind the wheel of the XStar. After a few less than successful double-ups we swapped drivers to see if Kilgus could serve up some meaty one’s. The one end of the lake was pretty blown out so we moved back down in front of Rusty’s. We were going for big air shots and double-ups on that shoreline at that end of the lake meant he had to hit them switch heelside. Turns out it wasn’t a problem; he took a couple of tries to get them dialed in, then started going off. And Kilgus was serving up huge doubles: they were so big he had to lift himself off the drivers seat to brace for impact as he crossed his own roller line. Rusty smashed out some huge hits and we were having so much fun the XStar ran out of gas. Our media boat still had a little left in the tank so we towed them back to the dock.

This was Rusty's first switch heeside hit. Levitt photo

Check out the close-up crop of Rusty's face from the above photo; even he's blown away. Levitt photo

Rusty and the media boat clicking into full gear. Levitt photo

Big Spence doing double duty as chase boat driver and photographer. Levitt photo

Kilgus demostrating his double-up driving techinque (or flexing his guns?). Levitt photo

With that shoot done, I grabbed lunch with Kilgus, Rusty and Big Spence then made the 50 mile journey across Orlando to The Projects where I had to finish up the interview with Pat Panakos and snag one or two more riding shots. We had talked about getting a shot on the kicker/spine by using one of the System 2’s they have in their rail park lake. Like the true veteran pro that he is, Pat and I banged out the shot for the magazine in about 15 minutes. After the on-water shoot we planned to head back to Pat’s metal fabrication shop to shoot some portraits, but didn’t really find anything that interesting to use as a background. Instead of trying to force the issue, we called it and went into Pat’s office to do the interview. I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve known Pat pretty well for a long time and I thought I knew most of what has gone on in his life, but I barely scratched the surface until yesterday. Pat gave a detailed account of his 18 years in the industry and 4 hours later I not only have enough info to write the interview, I have enough to start on his biography. Truly an amazing story and I’m really looking forward to sitting down and transcribing the interview.

Pat his this kicker over and over until his knees started feeling a little creaky. Levitt photo

We were going for something along these lines, but weren't really feeling it. Levitt photo

Because the interview went so long, I had to call it a day; I still had another 50 mile drive back to Clermont . I originally had intended to go to Kevin Henshaw’s beach b-day party bash and then back to Rusty’s to watch UFC 122, but I was done. A long day, but a good one: 1 failed photo shoot, 2 successful photo shoots, 1 incredible interview, 100 miles of driving and nearly 18 hours straight on the go. Yeah, it was a good one.

On a side note completely unrelated to me, congrats to Darin Shapiro for getting inducted into the Waterski Hall of Fame last night (saw some photos on Watson’s FB page). And congrats to Trevor Hansen and his wife Kaley on the birth of their daughter, Tailyn Brooke: stoked for you, bro.

It’s been a few days since my last update, but I’ve been on the move and there’s been lots going on. Not a lot of it has been Orlando related because I’ve been punching the clock trying to get our new site launched. If you’re reading this you’ve obviously had a little bit of a chance to look around. It’s a much cleaner look and way easier to navigate; I’m pumped on it so I hope you guys are too.

Let’s back up a few days to when I was still over at The Projects with my good buddy Pat Panakos. I mentioned how busy he is, but really I can’t even begin to describe it. Pat’s got his company, The Wake Park Project, firing on all cylinders promoting cable park systems all across North America. Looks like he’s doing a great job because he’s informed me that he’ll be installing 12 System 2.0’s and 2 full size cable parks over the next few months. There’s even a System 2.0 coming to Canada! I got the word that Michael Sampson out near Halifax  just forked over the down payment and they’re setting a date for the installation for some time this summer. All you Maritimer’s out there should be stoked.

Before I left The Projects, Raph and Oli Derome showed up to session the rail park. Oli is nursing a bit of a sore ankle so he was just there to drive the Waverunner for Raph’s set. It’s pretty obvious Raph has been focusing a lot of his time on rails lately because he straight up killed the big line in the rail park. If he threw down that set during The Carnival from a few years ago it wouldn’t have been a contest. You can check some of the highlights here. Also out at The Projects was the Shred Town crew they were sessioning the 100 ft flatbar and doing some filming for their website.

Shred Town @ The Projects. Levitt photo

I left The Projects and headed back towards Clermont with the plan of going right to bed, but I got a call along the way from James Balzer saying they were headed out for a night of bowling, Clermont-style. I got there a little late and the tournament was already on; the teams were Silas Thurman, Annie Cardinal and Candice Balzer vs. James Balzer, Yan Lecomte and Dan Brown. I can’t remember who walked away with the bragging rights. I’m blaming the $5 pitchers of beer for making the details of the night a little fuzzy.

 Yan Lecomte was top bowler on the night. Levitt photo

Balzer getting trashed talked by his wife. Levitt photo

But he rolls a strike to put his team back into the lead.  Levitt photo

Silas Thurman plays the role of The Dude. Levitt photo

The next morning I headed over to Phil Soven’s house to shoot some photos for the magazine. It’s pretty clear that Phil saved every contest winning since a very young age because his house is awesome. He bought the property when he was only 17 and hired an architect to design the whole deal. His house is going to be featured in the next issue for our Cribs department so you’ll be able to check all of the photos there.

Phil Soven's got a lot of guitars. Levitt photo

I had just gotten back from Phil’s when Rusty Malinoski came and grabbed me as he was heading over to JD Webb’s house for a quick set. Since we were in a hurry, Rusty jumped behind the wheel and put the good old Kia Forte rental car through the paces, racing along the back roads from Clermont to Polk County. Rusty was stoked because he set a personal best time for the trip at 33 minutes (it probably helped we were clocking speeds up to 95 MPH). Over at JD’s house we met up with Bryan Hutton, Kyle Alberts and filmer Spencer Norris. We rode in front of JD’s house despite a bass tournament that was being held on his lake. At one point we were weaving in between and few pissed off looking fishermen.

JD Webb. Levitt photo

Rusty Malinoski. Levitt photo

Bryan Hutton. Levitt photo

Kyle Alberts. Levitt photo

Today I ventured over to Kevin Henshaw’s house, which always seems as busy as a beehive. Henshaw was busy building a new floating uprail while Balzer, Silas and Yan were busy taking wakeskate sets. As Henhsaw was putting the finishing touches on the rail, we loaded it on to his boat trailer so he could drop it in the water.

I went back to Rusty’s in the afternoon to find him and Trevor Hansen  making some custom modifications to Rusty’s truck. After the repair work, we headed out to ride only to find the lake swarming with slalom skiers. We idled down the lake to wait our turn to ride, but the slalomer’s fully bitched us out for creating rollers. We were barely in gear, what were we supposed to do? The skiers finally went away (how many times do they need to zig-zag their way through a slalom course anyways?) and we got to ride. I jumped on the video camera instead of shooting stills. Trevor rode first and threw down, then Rusty squeezed in a quick set before the sun went down. I’m not going to spill the beans on what went down but Rusty landed a back-to-back double-up combo that he’s never landed before. I’m hoping to have the video done by tomorrow so be sure to check back.

Another busy day tomorrow; I’m off to the secret blue lake with Sean Kilgus and the Defy crew, then I might make the journey back out to The Projects to finish off some photos with Pat and then back to Clermont to attend Kevin Henshaw’s beach blast birthday party. Stay tuned.

Day 2 in Orlando (Clermont, to be precise) started early with my alarm going off at 6:45. After double-checking to make sure the sun was coming up and hitting the snooze a few times I headed over to Danny Harf’s house for a dawn patrol set. Danny is busy racking up footage for his new movie, Defy, and I was going to tag along for the shoot. Defy is the new project from Sean Kilgus due out sometime early next year. Driving around Lake Minnehaha on the way there looked really promising, the whole lake was glassed out.

I pulled into Danny’s house right behind JD Webb and Bob Sichel; already waiting for us was Kilgus, Danny, Amber Wing and Dean Smith. A few minutes later the rest of the crew was complete with Shawn Watson, photographer Aaron Katen, filmer Spencer Norris joining us. Everybody was riding behind Danny slammed Super Nautique 230, while the paparazzi jumped into the chase boat on loan from Kevin Henshaw.

JD and Kilgus getting the boats ready. Levitt photo

I'll save the details of the shoot for the photos but a few highlights stuck out in my mind. Danny can roll right out of bed and ride better than 99% of the pros out there; he completely killed it, notching at least a couple of keepers for the film. Dean got at 1 AM that morning on a 15+ hour flight from Thailand but still managed to bust out half a dozen huge Indy Tantrums off the double-up. JD has one of the best looking Methods around and had recently added a Pete Rose 5 to his arsenal. Watson rode last and kind of got screwed on water conditions but still managed to style out a bunch of grabbed wrapped tricks. All in all it was successful shoot. I’m heading out with the Defy crew again on the weekend to their private filming spot, which is an active quarry where the water is an incredible turquoise blue. Check back for a full report on Sunday.

Danny taking full advantage of the glassy conditions. Melon Crow Mobe 5. Levitt photo

Kilgus and Watson taking an iPhone break. Levitt photo

Not a recommended way to shake off jet-lag. Dean boosts this Indy Tantrum. Levitt photo

JD's got a ton of style. Locked-in HS Indy. Levitt photo

Watson riding, Danny driving, Katen shooting. Levitt photo

Watson making the most of not the greatest water conditions. Wrapped TS BS Melon 360. Levitt photo

I left Clermont to make the long drive across town to The Projects. Along the way I stopped to pay a visit to Aaron Rathy and check out his new house. Rathy was waiting on a shipment of new boards from Byerly so I’ll be heading back there later on this week to shoot photos for an upcoming interview. On the road again, I can’t help but notice that Orlando’s highways seem to be in a constant state of repair. I’ve been coming down here for at least 5 years and the construction never seems to stop.

I finally pulled into The Projects mid afternoon and spent time catching up with Pat Panakos. He’s got so much on the go, he could clone himself a few times over and he’d still be busy. He talking to people on the other side of the world, video conferencing on his laptop and answering emails all at the same time. Pat’s got some really exciting projects (no pun intended) on the go, which you’ll be hearing about very soon.

I managed to pull Pat away from his multi-tasking for an hour to go shoot some photos in the System 2.0 rail park. Pat had a couple of good sessions and admitted it was only the second time he’s been on the water in a few months; definitely a sign that Pat’s a super busy guy.

On the other side of town, Pat Panakos rides something other than a desk for a change. Levitt photo

The plan is to shoot with Pat in the morning tomorrow and then head back to the Clermont area to catch up with Rathy and a few other of the Florida based Canadians. Be sure to check in for Part 3.

April marks my bi-annual  trip down to the Greater Orlando Area to hang out with the pros, shoot some photos and gather content for the Summer Issue. It’s always nice to get out of the colder weather into some sunshine. It’s a good thing I didn’t schedule  my trip a few weeks earlier because Orlando has had its worst winter in ages. You’re probably thinking “how bad can winter in Orlando really be?” but Florida has been colder and windier than a lot of places in Canada for large stretches of the winter. But it looks like the summer weather is here to stay which means it’s going to be a busy week.

The trip from Vancouver is always a full day affair due to the fact there’s no direct flights. I left mid-day on Easter Sunday with the first leg of my journey going to Denver. It was a short, uneventful flight although the lady beside was a little too chatty and a bit of a personal space invader. I had a brief stopover in Denver where I had a lovely steak burrito for my Easter Sunday dinner; way to keep it classy, Levitt.

The second leg to Orlando can always be a bit of a dicey affair. While my sole purpose of this trip is work (if you can even call my job work) the majority of the universe travels to Orlando for vacation, specifically Disney World. And Disney Worlds means anxious kids barely able to contain themselves on a 4-hour flight. If you’re a close follower of my work, which I know most of you are, you may remember the nightmare ordeal I had to endure last year (scroll down to the Flight from Hell blog). It turns out the flight was fine. My seat neighbour was a 5-ish year old kid named Ethan who spent most of the flight killing zombies on his iPod touch. Ah, the wonders of technology.

Because of the west to east time change, I got in around 1 AM on Monday so the airport was completely deserted.  I made my way to the Alamo rental car counter, signed all the paper work and headed out to pick up my car for the week. The great thing about renting a car down here is they let you into the garage to pick your own ride. I lucked out and found a fully loaded Kia Forte complete with Sirius radio. I may be cursing my choice later cause renting a black car that’s going to sit all day in the Florida sun, but it was it was the best one on the lot. Alamo also has a new option where you pay $10 for unlimited tolls for the duration of your rental. Alamo is definitely going to lose money on this deal with me considering I can rack up $10 worth of charges in one day. I know, I shouldn’t be so excited about this, but it’s really the simple things in life that bring the most pleasure.

I woke up Monday to hot, sunny skies and headed out to Clermont and dropped by Kevin Henshaw’s. His house was a bustle of activity; James Balzer and Yan Lecomte were banging together a new rail, there was a crew doing some yard maitenance cause Henshaw’s having a beach birthday bash on Saturday (check back for highlights later), the ladies were sun tanning and Henshaw was transfixed on his new iPad. For us living in the technological 3rd world (ie. Canada) this thing is pretty cool; too bad we’ll have to wait a few months to try them out.

Ontario native Dan Brown testing out the new rail. Levitt photo

Henshaw took a break from his iPad to take a set behind his Malibu VLX. He’s actually focusing on riding the Pro Tour this year and learning a bunch of new tricks, including a Switch Toe 7, Switch Heel 7 and a Crow Mobe 5. When we got back Yan and Balzer had finished the rail and I wanted to get some shots to finish off the day. If there’s one thing that sketches me out about Florida is the water. It's dark, murky and you never know what’s lurking in there. I wanted to shoot the rail with my fisheye which meant standing in waist deep water next to the rail.

James Balzer piloting the new 2010 Wake Edition Sea Doo. Levitt photo

“Seen any gators or snakes in this lake recently?” I asked Henshaw.
“We saw one right over there by the rail this morning,” he replied. “But he’s probably gone by now. And it was only a small one anyways.”
“Like the size that would only bite off your finger or hand as opposed to ripping off your whole arm?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Awesome.”

I ventured out into the lake and got a few photos but I swear something bumped my leg underwater and I was out of there in a hurry.

I swear there's something watching me back there. Levitt photo

We finished the day with a BBQ at Henshaw’s with Parks Bonifay dropping by for dinner and watched Duke beat Butler in the NCAA Championship game. I’m meeting up with Danny Harf, JD Webb and Sean Kilgus to tag along for an early morning Defy shoot tomorrow and then it’s off to The Projects to catch up with Pat Panakos. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Balzer throwing a 270 Shove to Boardslide as the sun sets. Levitt photo