Surfers gather for opening ceremony at Maverick's

This explains why I saw Greg Long at the beach this morning.

Some more photos found here. Not sure if you need to be a FB member though to access. I don's see any pics of KS10 though. Anybody know if he made it out?

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=44104&id=100000094113382

Didn't see him on the beach & pretty sure he wasn't out there. Too bad, it was a nice ceremony.

Facebook, & Twitter accounts only allow you onto the site? Why is it exclusive to those two only? I have neither, and won't. Unless they open up the main page of The Jay for others they're going to lose mega bucks on merchandise sales over the Internet and interest by others. JMHO ;-)

Kelly Slater wasn't there but pretty much everyone else was. It was cool after the circle Jeff Clark announced "Lets go catch a wave for Jay" and about 2/3rds of the people paddled out to Mushroom Rock. It was a great vibe, everyone sharing waves and encouraging people in to them. The HMB High School Surf Team was out there with us as well, they are the guys in the circle almost up to their necks due to their shortboards where everyone else was on longboards or guns.

@Wave Glider - The main site doesn't have anything beyond the main page, the twitter account is pretty darn sparse and the Facebook page has not much more than the press releases. Remember they just got the permit in late October so they have not had a whole bunch of time to pull it all together. I think they will have something up in the next week or so as the window opens. The Facebook gallery posted above is from Lars of the HMB Review, who did a pretty good job, there is going to be a full section in the HMB Review on thursday with them in print so pick it up if you can't see them.

That being said they did do an awesome job of putting on a great event of the paddle out, opening ceremony, golf ball draw and dinner. I think the team has been focused on getting all the pieces in place for the contest to happen rather than launching the full site.
I can't say I blame them.

The group behind The Jay isn't about the merchandise etc. they have the contest in mind first. All of the money from the merch on sale last night went directly to the Jay Moriarity Foundation rather than to anyone's pocket as it had happened in the past.

It was a great night, it was special and the weather was perfect. If you have a chance to go to next years opening I highly recommend it.

@lkilpatrick; thanks for the inside info as I wasn't aware of anything related to this years Maverick's Contest with the exception of what I either read in the Bay Area news papers, or saw & or heard on TV/radio. Although the web Surf sites had some info too, but nothing I found about what took place for the opening ceremony or the dinner events.

What is the best & most current site to keep up with all the goings on related to the contest this year?

Here's a couple shots I took with my rinky-dink pretend camera. Tracey's shots from the air (I was busy at the moment) are better. The legit photographer in the back seat of the plane has better still.

Air support, checking in:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracey_t/sets/72157625376358945/

@Wave Glider - The main sites with the news that I have been following that have had the best info that are not on Facebook are http://halfmoonbay.patch.com/ and http://www.hmbreview.com/ the local sites here in half moon bay. The official site will probably get better soon.

If the other stokereporters don't mind, I will post up news when I get it.I have not been posting things about Half Moon Bay lately because every time I have posted something not directly talking about OB it got thumbs downed or had negative comments on it, so I have not been sharing.