QUALITY KID OUTER BANKS TRIP

On Tuesday October 26th, after keeping a close eye on a low pressure system moving off the eastern sea board and monitoring an extremely exciting surf forecast I rang up Ted Whitteman and asked if I could steal his grom for a weekend on the Outer Banks to get a good look at some pumping East Coast surf. Ted needed to check in with his wife Stephanie first of course, but it was on shortly there after. By 4:00 AM Thursday I was in my truck with Robbie and Shreddy Teddy heading north on I95. The first half of our drive was plagued with rain and sleepy eyeballs. Robbie and I’s board bags got pretty severely drenched but we didn’t seem to care. We decided to make a pit stop at one of the finest fast food establishments in the South East, Cook Out. Teddy ordered some chicken nuggets and proclaimed that the nice lady that took his order looked like Doja Cat and he wanted her number. Unfortunately for Teddy the lady was thrilled, however a little too old for him. The rests of our drive was smooth sailing.

We woke up Friday morning with low expectations for surf seeing the wind was forecasted to switch offshore late in the evening. However with a fault in the forecast around 2:00 PM the wind began ticking more West than South and a few caves started opening near Rodanthe Pier. The surf was bombing, and still a bit unruly. Teddy asked me every 5 minutes how big I thought the waves were and if I thought he could handle it. Unknowing how Teddy would fair in conditions as such I told him to watch it from the beach for bit until he felt comfortable enough to paddle. Feeling anxious I called Quentin Turko to get his take on the spot and by the time he arrived a few guys had already made the decision to give it a go. Robbie, Quentin, and I suited up and gave it a paddle with the most bad ass hell woman i’ve ever met in my entire life Kaythryn Harms. I swung on the first wave that came to me and got a quick stand up pit. The wind picked up to nearly 30 MPH making the surf a bit of a challenge and nearly eliminating the opportunity on the rights which had been my game plan for the session. After a few more looks I found a right that could have been special however, a guy paddling out forced me to change my line and avoid the tube. On my paddle back out a very large set wave doubled up and landed square on my forehead. I ditched my surfboard and was slammed in to the bottom hitting my head and sent in to a spiral. I came up feeling quite dizzy and wore a few more waves on the head. I decided to go back out to see if the dizziness would fade away and to my surprise when I got back out, Teddy was in the line up. Im pretty sure I had a minuscule concussion and took it super easy for the remainder of the session. While regathering myself I watched the animal come out of Teddy and he charged on a few set waves. It was so rad to see him in the mix with a lineup full of the East Coasts top pros. When we arrived home Robbie did a brief examination on my eyeballs and determined I was not in fact concussed.

Friday night I was awoken for the second consecutive night by Teddys sleep walking/talking. Although this time I didn’t mind because we all knew Saturday was going to be our best opportunity at getting good waves. I started my day at 4:30 AM and had 3 cups of coffee and 3 wave checks by 6:00 AM. I woke Robbie up to check the waves again in the dark. The surf seemed small and the stiff breeze felt onshore. A bit confused, we loaded up our gear and hit the road to check a few spots. The tide needed to fill in and the wind needed to creep back offshore. We met up with Outer Banks super grom Will Deane, for a session at the light house for a quick surf. By mid day conditions came together and Kite Point turned on. It felt like every surfer on the OBX knew. Teddy and Will wasted no time and jumped straight in to the mix again to score a few gems. Robbie and I watched a bit longer where we discovered another wave breaking a few hundred yards up the beach that seemed a little less consistent but just as good when they came, also no one was out. We sprinted up the beach and filmed for about an hour. Robbie put his camera away and we scored a dream session with only your best friend out for a total of 7 hours of surfing. When we returned to Teddys peak we discovered an exhausted Teddy that had been surfing for 8 hours off the sheer power of Pringles, and Clementines. He proclaimed he could live off of Pringles. The sun was setting and our trip was coming to an end. The drive home was fairly uneventful considering Teddy was the life on our trip and he was passed out a majority of the drive and he ran out of Pringles. All in all it was a successful strike mission and the Quality Kid crew is ready for another! Until next time, Surf Fast, Die Last. Peace Love Chaun! Thank you for reading!

PS: If anyone reading this is interested in inquiring about taking a surf coaching trip, I’m more than happy to discuss it. You can reach me at this Email: Chaunceyrips@gmail.com

BELMAr, NJ

During the Outer Banks Pro Hurricane Larry developed in to a major storm and the swell charts for the entire eastern seaboard caught the attention of nearly every human that has ever set foot on a surfboard. My original plan for this road trip was to track down to Myrtle Beach for the Carolina Cup after the conclusion of the OBX event: however, after monitoring some forecasts it was an easy decision. If I wanted to potentially score any waves from the inbound storm while surfing in an event I would have to continue north.

A few phone calls later I was on my way to Brigantine to meet up with Ben Gravy who had Blair Conklin and Jamie O Brien in town for the swell. Day one consisted of surfing a novelty right hand point break inside the Great Egg Harbor Inlet that was fully freaking nuking. I was feeling experimental, so I road Blairs new Catch Surf Boogey Skim model and did a couple lips slides that I was personally proud of. Everyone was shredding except Jamie who decided the day was better for taking a nap. From there I hopped back in my truck to track 2 hours north towards Belmar. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend Logan Hayes and his mentor Erie Peeples in town for the Belmar Pro. They offered me a couch to sleep on with the legendary Downs family who allowed us to use one of their rental properties that had just finished being rented out for the summer. The Downs accepted us in to their home Pork Rolls in hand and helped us out with anything we needed including Morgan Downs shooting a session from the water at the 16th street jetty. The event started with Larry swell on tap. It was far from pumping but about as good as you could ask for, for an East coast event. The first few rounds kicked off with head high surf and offshore winds of the 15th street jetty. I started the event in a shitty head space knowing that just around the corner had the potential to be 8 feet and absolutely cooking. However following the conclusion of day 2, Logan and I decided to meet up with our friend Brett Hill, a powerful goofy footer at an undisclosed location in search of 8 foot kegs. While on the phone, Brett mentioned he had a spot he’d been checking throughout the swell that “had a couple runners.”. We arrived at Bretts top secret location and he introduced us to his friend Danny, another stylish goofy footer from the Manasquan region, and his girl friend Maggie who was suiting up to shoot the evening session from the water. When we walked over the dune we found out it wasn’t 8 foot kegs, but the surf definitely sparked our interests. We traded off on sets, had some laughs, talked story and near the end of the session I even lucked in to a freak gem of a wave that barreled the length of the sandbar just letting me out at the end. I also got to link up a shot with Maggie who was an absolute weapon dodging rips and lip lines for much of the session. We watched a lovely sunset from the water and from there my fear of missing out disappeared. The next two days I was able to put my entire focus in to making heats, because after all that was my job at hand. I ended up making the final with Logan Hayes where I trailed for much of the heat. At 9 minutes remaining I had 3 waves left in my wave count and I required a wave score of 8.8. With 3 minutes left I pulled the trigger on a set wave Logan was too far inside to reach. I put all 145 pound of myself in to hitting the lip as hard as I could 3 times until the waves completion. As soon as I completed the last turn I knew the wave would be enough obtain the score and went in to defense mode. The buzzer rang and the commentator announced the score of an 8.9 shortly after. After the final I had the chance to share a couple drinks with my new found New Jersey friends and say my goodbyes just to set my alarm for 2 AM to begin my 17 hour car ride back to Melbourne Beach. This was my 5th time returning to Belmar since I was 16, and i’ve never felt so welcomed in a surf community. My biggest take away from this trip was to not get so caught up in the contest scene. Taking the time to meet people in the community makes life on the road much easier/enjoyable and can make anywhere feel like home. Always be nice. Never be a dick, and you just may get hooted in to the wave of the day. Thanks for reading this shitty article. Peace, love, Chaun.

-Chauncey

FLORIDA

This video was filmed by Jeff Margaritondo and Julian Rodriguez over the course of 8 sessions and 6 months in Florida. Our schedules are pretty tough with balancing work and family time which makes shooting in Florida even tougher than it is already. Any ways... hope you enjoy the new clip!

SURF COACHING BOOKING:

CHAUNCEYRIPS@GMAIL.COM

WILEYWOBINSON@GMAIL.COM

EARLY SEASON INLET DIVe

PHOTOS BY JEFF MARGARITONDO

With summer dwelling upon us here in Central Florida, the Atlantic has taken a slumber and it could potentially be months before we see hurricanes barreling swell at our coast. Until then we have kept occupied by the many other beauties of Sebastian Inlet. After what seemed to be the worst spring in recent memory; we were graced with just enough time between swells, good tides, and just fair enough winds to kick the summer off with a bang and get an early season jetty dive in. The following are images captured by Jeff on our mission to turn ourselves in to fish.

MARCH 21ST 2021, CENTRAL FLORIDA

Photos courtesy of @mezapixels and @Logan_staton_

Here we see a gallery of the men getting after it during the final swell of the season before summer time flatness creeps in.

ALIVE ON ARRIVAL

CHAUNCHOO pichoo

le film

UNUSUAL TIDES

A Film By Jeff Margaritondo and Chauncey filmed over the course of winter around Central Florida.

IMages

From

Barbados

Photos: Nathan Adams (@nathanadams)

Jake Strahlo (@jaystray)

Jon Carter (@joncarterphotography)

Alex Martinez (@alexmartinez321)

KATHRYN HARMS

QK X JOSE

Photos: @natehphoto

@codycoleman

@jaystray

Steve Radd

IRMA GALLERY

Photo's :

@asurferscomposition

@JayStray

@NateHPhoto

OUTER BANKs Free surf

Photos:

@Patrickduggan_

@joncarterphotography

@jordannason_photo

@nicolalugo

@rsmallcheck

@jadapacaveli

Alec Zappone and Wiley Robinson take a trip to the Outer Banks and score some fun waves along with an entire roll of 35MM film to tell the story.  Here is a small sample. Check out Alec's "Film Talk" on Instagram for more amazing film photos @filmtalk. Stay tuned for plenty more of Alec's photography to be featured on Quality Kid.

Barbados B&W

Photos: Nathaniel Harrington (@natehphoto)

Dalton Smith (@npiproductions)

Chauncey Robinson (@Chaunchoo)

Watch Digital black here!

Chauncey and Nathaniel Harrington link up during a late season swell slamming the East Coast of Barbados. Land footage of this wave can be viewed in Chauncey's new film "Digital Black"