Cruisin' on Maui, Hawaii with the LF Crew

So we've been out on Maui for a while now! I came out here after the Philippines with good friends and fellow Liquid Force Team rider Brandon Scheid and Sensi Graves! That night Sam Medysky flew in from Canada to meet up with us at our new place, The Kailolo house in Wailuku! The house was just newly renovated and completely decked out and we were lucky enough to be the first crew to stay in the new pad! With beautiful views of the ocean and west Maui mountains from both the front and back porch, a one minute walk to Rivermouths to surf or a quick 5 minute drive to Kitebeach we had a good home base to kick off this adventure!

LF Voyager @ the Kailolo Kite House

View from the front of the Kailolo Kite House

View from the back of the Kailolo House

And an adventure it was! I haven't ever been on a kite trip where we did so much exploring, sight seeing and touristy sorta stuff. It's all good though, there is so much to do and see on Maui it would take you years to complete everything and we had our sights set on kiting, surfing and exploring as much as we possibly could every single day! Some of the highlights so far have been the Road To Hana trip where we navigated the gnarly road of switchbacks and 51 single lane bridges all the way around the east side of the island, the lush bamboo forest, 400+ foot waterfalls, Haleakala Volcano, lava tubes, craters, tons of rainbows and double rainbows, the Rip Curl store, snorkeling the reefs, black beaches, white beaches, red beaches and just hiking the island with good friends to some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my whole life!

Road to Hana sunset

West Maui Mountain Hike

cave in the lava tubes

chillin at the Rip Curl Store in Lahaina

beautiful view from a drive around the NW corner of the island

hike through the bamboo forest

Brandon and myself on top of Haleakala Volcana

400+ foot waterfall at the end of the "7 Pools" hike

awesome Banyan Tree

With all the adventure you'd think we hadn't had much wind and you'd be right. December and January has been pretty dismal for wind with only a handful of sessions. But then at the end of January the crew started building and so did the conditions. My girlfriend Tahnee arrived as well as Julien Fillion Liquid Force Designer and Team Rider flew in with all the new 2012 gear ready to be shot and tested! Perfect timing as Henning Sanstrom Liquid Force Team Rider/Filmer from Sweeden showed up and brought the wind and swell with him! The next day Jaws was going off for the first time all winter and the NE trades were pumping too! The first big wave session of the trip went down and the stoke within the household was super high! I haven't done much big wave riding at all so pulling into some of those mackers with a kite really got my adrenaline pumping! The waves here are so perfect and unbelievably fun! I have much more respect for kiting in the waves now and want to do a lot more of it myself in the future! The freestyle conditions on the other hand aren't exactly as good as the waves. It can get really good just not as consistently as I was hoping for... there is only flat water in one direction (regular tack) which is switch for me and it is usually blowing the wrong wind direction to get deep into the flat water anyways but there are goofy kickers and I've been having a lot of fun and taking a lot of beatings learning how to boot off them! After that first really good surge and a few epic days of wind and waves Nuria Goma LF Team Rider from Spain and her boyfriend David Romeau arrived just as things were starting to mellow out but still scored some of the goods! Shortly after the crew kept on growing with the additions of one more LF Team Rider, Jason Slezak and Slingshot Team Rider Eric Rienstra! With such a solid crew of people and the chill locals Kitebeach is a super fun place to ride and hangout! I've been waiting to come here ever since I started riding! Looking up to guys like Lou, Elliot, Morris, Sleezy, Stone, and Moe! It's crazy to be here now, in the same spot but with a new crew trying to push it as much as we can! Maui is bound to get lit up with some good riding and good times in the next month or so!!!

LF crew maxin at Kite Beach

Kona Wind session on the South Side

Kite Beach kickers

Kite Beach flat water

Stumped On The Sea Shore

Maui hasn't been exactly cranking in the wind department and on our third session in almost a month Sam had his leash wrap around his finger and it ripped off the end of his middle digit. He booked a flight home right away but spent the next couple of days filming Brandon, Cruser and myself. What a trooper! Here's an edit Sammy put together from a couple of sessions before he left... It would have been nice if we had more time to shoot with him before he dipped, I didn't exactly stomp all the tricks I was hoping for, it's tough only having flat water for regular stance but it's definitely going to help my switch game in the future! Anyways the edit turned out pretty sick regardless! Check it out!!! Thanks Sammo! Hope that finger heals up soon!

Stumped on the sea shore from Sam Medysky on Vimeo.

CWC Quick Hits!

I'm already missing the CWC so the other day I went through some footage from a couple laps where Brandon Scheid and myself were trading of the HD Go Pro camera during the Wind Or No Wind Board Jam!

Here's a short edit with some quick hits! Watch out... a lot more footage coming out of this event!

2010 Wind Or No Wind Board Jam @ CWC

Wind Or No Wind 2010... what a blur! All I can say is Morris and Governor L-Ray know how to put on a proper event and throw some mega parties! Everyone had a blast and the level of progression went through the roof! Being able to wake up and just take a short walk to go shred the best cable park in the world or take a set on the System 2.0 winch park helped take everyones riding to the next level! Now we just have to take all this cable knowledge and drop it into kiting! The two sports are so similar with only a few differences. With a cable or System 2.0 you have the advantage from the consistency of pull and the features always being ready but with kiteboarding you have your own personal cable and you don't need to walk back to the start dock! Other than that were doing a lot of similar stuff and with events like this the sports can really feed off each other and grow at a faster pace!


Wind Or No Wind 2010 offically has put it's stamp on the kiteboarding industry and is now a world class event that nobody will want to miss! Having a full sized kite park, world class cable park, boat lake, 7 System 2.0's, cheap food and booze and $10 hour long massages, the CWC in Camsur is a hard venue to beat!



And the event organizers and all the riders took full advantage of having the chance to be here! Logging massive amounts of riding while the media crew buzzed around in the chopper! One thing that's for sure is there will be no shortage of footage coming out of this event! The amount of media was crazy, not one minute went by without being fully documented from multiple angles!



But Wind Or No Wind wasn't just about shredding all day long... we got a chance to see the other side of the Philippines too! Morris had a few trips organized for us with the most memorable being a trip to one of the local kite beaches where they had a System 2.0 with a flat bar and kicker set up for us just in case we didn't score any wind and our trip to Mount Isarog National Park was another highlight where we hiked to this raging waterfall with hidden caves!




As the week was coming to an end we knew something big going to happen to shut this event down and once again WONW stepped it up and threw a massive closing party complete with fireworks, L-Ray dancers putting on an amazing show, pig roast dinner, and another night of DJ Paul dropping beats late into the night at the Happy Ending bar after the awards ceremonies!




During the awards I was super surprised to hear my name? Morris called me up and handed me the "Best Attitude" award! SO STOKED! Being able to come to this event with all the top riders in the sport was crazy enough but winning that award and having it presented to me by the "Godfather" of wakestyle kiteboarding was unbelievable! Brandon Scheid fellow Liquid Force Team Rider and travel partner for the winter took down 1'st place on the cable and 3'rd on the kite! Amped for him cause he's been straight up murdering the rails and is one of the hardest working riders out there! Nice to see him take a first home for NA and LF! Aaron Hadlow and Sam Light held it down for the UK! Aaron took 2'nd on the cable and 1'st on the kite while Sam Light grabbed a 2'nd on the kite and 3'rd on cable! Big ups to the whole crew though! Everyones riding progressed a lot and kiteboarding just got a huge boost as far as skill level from the top riders on rails and kickers!!!



Wind Or No Wind 2010 was a huge success and a lot of fun! Such a beautiful place with the best wake and kite park you could ever imagine!!! I already cant wait to come back next year to get sick on the water and chill with the crew!



NOW OFF TO MAUI...

CWC @ CWC - Craig W Cunningham @ Camsur Watersports Complex!!!

The last few days have been crazy! I've been riding the CWC (Camsur Watersports Complex) which is basically the best cable park/winch park in the world. I arrived in the Philippines Saturday morning with Brandon Scheid and we met up with the UK crew who were just getting in as well. Everybody is killing it and the progression is going through the roof! This place is absolutely of the charts! Couldn't think of any setup that even comes close... beautiful scenery, world class cable, kite park, concrete winch park with 7 System 2.0's, sick skatepark, $10 hour long massages, great food, free shuttles into the town and some very friendly people make CamSur, Philippines a place I know I will be returning to in the future no doubt!



We came here for the 1'st ever Wind Or No Wind Jam put on by the godfather of wakestyle kiteboarding, Mauricio Abreu! This will be like no other kite contest before. If we have wind we shred the kite park, if not we just go hit up the full sized cable or one of the System 2.0's! The idea behind this event is to show the world what kiteboarding can be and that the top wakestyle riders in the world can throw down on the cable or a kite... doesn't really matter!


Today we hit up the concrete winch park that featured two down rails and a step up pool! Nowhere else in the world does anything like this exist, just wait until you see the photos and footage from todays session!

It was our last chance for warm up sets before the event kicks off tomorrow morning so check back here, SBCkiteboard.com and windornowwind.com for daily updates! Brrraaapppp!

Boarder Pass, Sarnia - November 11/2010

I've had been working on a short kite edit with all the scrap footage I had lying around on my computer from this fall at home in Ontario! Was looking pretty sick and I just logged some more footy at the cable in Sarnia! Then when I almost almost had it done, my computer crashed... so bummed, hope I can recover it. But I did have a little edit for finished, so here it is...


Quick set from last week at the Boarder Pass in Sarnia! Managed to make it up there a couple times this season and was jonsing for one last set before I head out for the winter! Tim and Chris have done an awesome job with the place and have a full selection of Liquid Force rentals if you dont have wake gear! If you havent made it up there yet to check out the setup you should definitely make sure you get up there next season! Cable is so much fun, perfect for no wind days! To bad it's over 2+ hours from home, really wish we had one closer!

Boarder Pass Edit from Craig Cunningham on Vimeo.

LTR Productions in Ontario...

Chuck from LTR Productions was in Ontario for a week along with some other friends from Cape Hatteras. At the end of their stay they came down to Long Point and shot for a day in the slick! The edit turned out really good! Wish I had more time to film with Chuck though cause he's so creative and I had a lot more tricks to stomp for him! Check it out! Part #2 featuring...
Evan Netsch, Brandon Scheid and myself!

More videos and sick swag at www.lifetheral.com

Ontario part 2 (feat. Evan, Brandon and Craig) from Lifethereal on Vimeo.