Monday, January 30th was a lei day for the VPP which was perfect timing for the green efforts. Sunday’s waste diversion efforts were in dire need of some attention before the North Shore mongoose population had a holiday feast on the compost that we collected for the farm. TR3EES had an amazing time on the land with farmer Anthony Palazzolo and his team of WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers). When we arrived there was a fresh, hot pile of coconut mulch, which happens to be some of the best material to compost with. It is naturally anti-pathogenic and breaks down really fast with the right amount of moisture and self generated heat.

After making a 10 x 6 foot bed, we emptied out food waste, watered it down, covered it up with more green waste and coconut mulch, and let it cook! In keeping with our high standards for green practices, we even washed and scrubbed our buckets with Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap (made from all organic plant oils) using a coconut husk as a scrubbie! That’s seriously GREEN!

Once composted, all of the materials will be up-cycled into the soil providing rich nutritious elements that plants need to grow in good health.

Tuesday, January 31st, we woke up to bombing surf! It was so heavy that my windows were rumbling all night and we knew it was going to be an epic day! We hit the ground running with some oatmeal and coffee served in Styrophobia sponsored compostable products made from plants, and got busy adding a second Zero Waste station inside the Volcom House. Tai Van Dyke was really happy to help set it up to maximize Volcom’s efforts in Hawaii.

At the end of one of the most exciting days in Pipe Contest history, we drove off with 220 gallons of plastic/aluminum/glass recycling, one half of a yard of cardboard, 100 gallons of compostable food service containers, and almost NO FOOD WASTE. We had less than 1 gallon of food waste thanks to the amazing cooking of Thomas Naylor and his catering team. Taro pancakes, the best local eggs you have ever tasted in your life, fish, spinach massed potatoes, and Cesar salads with chicken! YUM! It was great to have nothing wasted!

Of course, Sambazon came through again and we dished out 150 acai bowls as the afternoon healthy energy lifter to the ASP and Volcom Crews and judges! Although, with the energy coming from the ocean today, I am pretty sure the details were blurred out by the best show on Earth! Macking PIPE! Click here if you didn’t get to see it.

We are looking forward to a bitter sweet final day where the 2012 VPP champ will emerge, and we will have to wait another year for the best surfing competition in Hawaii to return yet again…

To view all the photos (courtesy of © Crystal Thornburg-Homcy) from the last few days’ Zero Waste efforts, visit our New Future flickr site.

FINALS DAY NOTES FROM JEN:

ALOHA FANS! We really hope you caught the final heat of the 2012 VPP, and hope even more that your heart survived the excitement! Mine was leaping out of my chest as we watched that final set reach the line-up in the last 30 seconds… with John John going deeper in a paddle battle with J.O.B. to catch a backdoor bomb.  Who thought he would even make the drop, much less pull off the best show of the entire contest? Maybe even the best show in Pipe Contest HISTORY!

And then, we took out the trash! With post-adrenaline heart palpitations, weak knees and perma-grim smiles, we dug in!  Dealing with the nasty bags of recycling, nastier bags of food containers, and even nastier buckets of food scraps has never been so much fun!

With the finals, there are always more people buzzing about which inevitably means more waste. Our final day tally was 300 gallons of recycling, 18 gallons of food waste and another 120 gallons of compostables.  With a celebratory beer  in one hand, waste to be diverted in the other, the overwhelming excitement combined with complete exhaustion left us with 3 truck loads or stuff to carry away… none of which will ever reach the landfill.

I must admit that we could have done better, as I think we all can on any given day… BUT… that being said, we definitely did the best we could do in the moment.  Next year, we will be ready to communicate better, collect cleaner, divert more, reduce more, educate more, and waste LESS!  AND you can too!

Make an effort in your DAY-TO-DAY!  Get off SUPWB’s, say NO to Plastic Bags, grow some food, compost your waste, and carry your own chop sticks or utensils. Try to encourage your favorite eat get good “grinds” to give up Styrofoam! Tell them you will pay more for healthy products! Bend over once in a while, and pick something up off the ground… so it does NOT wind up in the ocean.  And as the popular North Shore bumper sticker says…”SAVE SOMETHING!”

With my warmest ALOHA and thanks to VOLCOM, I leave you with two things….

1) Learn more about how to Live Like Sion and how to Live with Aloha: The legacy of Sion means to honor yourself, always be true, and do what you say you are going to do! Don’t talk about it, DO IT

2) John Muir, in all of his wisdom, said this: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

Honor yourself every day, be true to others and look around you.  Take notice and get connected!

Send us your ideas and let us know what you are doing to make a difference on our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tr3ees/222408884476100 and we will

see you Next Year for the 2013 Volcom Pipe Pro! Malama pono a hui hou (“take Care, until we meet again”)!

Watch heat recaps at www.volcompipepro.com

NORTH SHORE, Oahu – (Feb. 1st, 2012) – The final day of competition at the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro ended in a spectacular showdown in the last 10-seconds of the 35-minute final with John Florence taking the win with a buzzer-beating 9.93 Backdoor barrel. His last wave, together with his earlier perfect 10-point ride, put his combined heat score at 19.93 out of a possible 20 to edge out former Pipe Pro Champion Jamie O’Brien in 2^nd, Kai Barger in 3^rd and Nate Yeomans in 4th.

O’Brien held the lead for the majority of the final, only to see the top spot disappear in the last minute of the heat. With a minute to go, Florence paddled over and congratulated O’Brien. Then a dark line on the horizon caught his eye. One last wave stacked up on the Pipeline reef. Florence clawed his way past Jamie, over the ledge, under the lip and into the heat-winning tube ride – a 9.93 – to claim the $20,000 first prize and a custom warrior helmet trophy.

“I wrote myself off half way through,” said Florence. “Kai and Jamie both had nines and eights. Jamie had two nines. I can’t believe it. Here at Pipe anything can happen. I surfed my first heat, then had my hand (injury) and tweaked my neck really bad and that was killing me. So I was seriously considering not continuing on. I got some work done on my neck, taped my hand up and it all worked out.”

Back on the beach, O’Brien and Florence shook hands and O’Brien shook his head.

“It hurts,” said Jamie, holding onto the runner-up $10,000 check. “You think you’re going to win and you don’t. It’s OK. I got some really good scores and I put on a great performance, I felt. To me that means everything. I had a great time. I finally got in a good rhythm my last couple of heats. I enjoyed myself and it was a good day.”

This event marks the second consecutive year that Florence and O’Brien have taken the number 1 and 2 spots at the Volcom Pipe Pro.

Also awarded today was the Todd Chesser Hard Charger Sportsmanship Award – presented to Costa Rica’s Carlos Munoz who posted the first perfect score of the event in the early rounds and finished in equal ninth place.

As an added bonus, Electric’s “Perfect 10 Award” was given out to any surfer that locked in a 10-point ride during the event. Winners received $1,000 in cash, handed to them directly after their heats. Recipients included: Carlos Munoz (Costa Rica), Dylan Graves (Puerto Rico), Dusty Payne (Hawaii), Balaram Stack (New York) and John Florence (Hawaii).

A two-hour highlight program of the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro will air on Fuel TV this Saturday at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST. For more information, check your local listings or go to www.fuel.tv.

Special thanks to Electric Visual, TransWorld Surf, Kicker Audio, Fuel TV, Zico, Surfline.com, ASP Hawaii, Oceanic Time Warner Cable and everyone that helped out with the event.

You can tune into www.volcompipepro.com to watch the live HD webcast of the event, see video warrior stats, up to the minute results, daily videos and more. iPhone users can also download the VolcoMobile iPhone App and stay up-to-date on the live webcast wherever you are, as well as purchase Volcom Pipe Pro Merch and access all features of the full website.

The Volcom Pipe Pro is an extra special event for the local Hawaiian competitors, being that it is the only chance for non-World Tour surfers to gain entry into the prestigious Pipe Masters. The top eight Hawaiian competitors in the Volcom Pipe Pro will be rewarded wildcard entries into the 2012 event, which is part of the Triple Crown series that wraps up the year.

Today’s standouts included three perfect 10-point rides (with a $1,000 cash bonus from Electric’s “Perfect 10 Award”) given to Balaram Stack (New York), Dusty Payne (Hawaii) and Dylan Graves (Puerto Rico).

Other notable scores of the day included Bruce Irons (Hawaii) with a 9.40 and a 8.07 – giving him the highest total combined heat score of the day at 17.47. There were plenty of single wave high scores from Ian Walsh (Hawaii) with an almost perfect 9.87, Gabe Kling (Florida) with a 9.70, Carlos Munoz (Costa Rica) with a 9.27, Nate Yeomans (California) with a 9.23 and Mason Ho (Hawaii) with a 9.17.

Defending Volcom Pipe Pro champion, John Florence (Hawaii), scraped through today in a heat that could have been a final. Up against former Pipe champion Bruce Irons, Australian Anthony Walsh, and North Shore local Sean Moody, Florence had his work cut out. Florence made a last minute barrel to steal second place away from Walsh and advance.

“I was pretty nervous, I almost wasn’t going to do my heat,” said Florence. “I have a really bad kink in my neck, and my hand hurt… I kind of sat there the whole heat and luckily got a wave in the end. Anthony Walsh is so gnarly. That was definitely a scary heat to have… Moody and Bruce too… There are a lot of wash-through sets. It’s fun but there’s these crazy double ups that come in.”

Pipe standouts that failed to advance through their round of 64 heats today included Dusty Payne, who did not secure a back up wave after scoring a perfect 10 on a draining Backdoor tube. Others Hawaiian’s that didn’t advance included: Myles Padaca, Ola Eleogram, Marcus Hickman, Roy Powers, Pancho Sullivan and Kekoa Bacalso.

Surfline.com, the official forecaster of the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro is predicting another day of great conditions tomorrow (Wednesday), so make sure you check back at 7:30 am for the official call.

Watch the heats on demand if you missed anything from today, check the full results and photos from all the action. When the Volcom Pipe Pro resumes, we will start with heat 1 in the round of 32 and crown a champion by the end of the day.

Here are the photos from Day 3 of the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro! Click the photo player above into full screen and see what you missed today…

All photos by Brian Bielmann (land) and Brent Bielmann (water)

California’s Chris Ward stole the show in heat 10 of the round of 96, making two deep Backdoor barrels for the highest combined heat score of 19.00 out of a perfect 20. Ward had the three other competitors combo’d and then managed to pull into a long left-hander at Pipe and ended the heat throwing away his third 9.0 ride.

The highest single wave of the day belonged to Costa Rica’s Carlos Munoz, scoring the only perfect 10 of the event so far.  He earned himself an extra $1,000 bonus in cash from Electric’s “Perfect 10 Award”. Other standout rides included Koa Smith (Kauai) with a 9.73, Gabriel Villaran (Peru) with a 9.0, and Koa Rothman (Oahu) with a 8.93.

The east coast competitors put on a great showing today as well, with Nils Schweizer, and Balaram Stack both winning their heats in the round of 96 and Brett Barley advancing to the round of 96 even after getting an interference. Other notable performances were Australian brothers Anthony and Stephen Walsh surfing in the same heat together and both advancing through to the round of 64.

There were some local Pipeline heavy hitters that unfortunately did not make their heats: Dave Wassel, Makua Rothman, Sunny Garcia, Kawai Lindo and Danny Fuller all fell just short of advancing to the next round.

Surfline.com, the official forecaster of the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro is predicting the surf will be massive on Monday and Tuesday, so make sure you check back at 7:30 am tomorrow for the official call.

Watch the heats on demand if you missed anything from today, check the full results and photos from all the action. When the Volcom Pipe Pro resumes, we will start with heat 14 in the round of 96 and move into the round of 64.

This year, we’re continuing to build on what we’ve done with out partner (TR3EES) and, in fact, have sprinkled in a few more bits here and there to keep the momentum going. We’d love to hear from you regarding our initiatives here and/or regarding anything related to our New Future program. Any comments? Please send them to NewFuture@volcom.com. Here’s the report from today, January 28th, 2012:

“Today’s greening results were pretty small due to the short day.. None-the-less… we were able to collect and divert 85 gallons of recycling (including 33 gallons of glass bottles from nightly festivities), 33 gallons of compostable food service goods, and about 2 gallons of food waste.  We also collected another 7 gallons of food waste from the caterers who are working with us to maintain high standards for waste diversion.  They are collecting all of their fruit, veggie, and coffee waste for us to take to the farm.” -Jen Homcy

Even though the day was short, with the help of Jen and the TR3EES Team at the opening day of the 2012 Volcom Pipe Pro, we are doing our part to keep our commitment to the environment and the community of the North Shore.

All photos: Crystal Thornberg-Homcy

“The swell is building in afternoon and the tide surge is making condition impossible to run. Next call will be will be at 7:30 AM tomorrow morning, Sunday Jan. 29th.” Said Brad Dougherty, Volcom Surf Brand Manager.

Until then, make sure you check out the photos and videos from today’s action packed trials and first round heats. Here’s the end of the day release:

NORTH SHORE, OAHU – (Jan. 28, 2012) – The Banzai Pipeline caught everyone off guard today as waves doubled and tripled in size from one heat to the next. After the completion of only seven heats, competition organizers called the event off for the day due to dangerous conditions. Just under three hours of competition was a sufficient amount of time for injuries, wipeouts and hairball rides to be registered. Waves maxed out in the 15 to 20-foot range.

Kauai’s Stephen Koehne, the top-scorer of the day, ended up with a gruesome gash to the knee that could well see him out of the water for weeks. Regular Pipeline chargers Mark Healey and Tom Dosland took the wipeout beatings of the day, and Pipe specialist Dave Wassel was the overall standout.

“I was in his heat but I didn’t see it happen,” said Wassel. “But I saw his leg afterwards. It doesn’t look like he’ll be walking for a few weeks, let alone surfing. The hole is huge. Lucky it was his leg and not his head.

“It’s huge surf and it’s non-stop. It’s too much surf for Pipeline now and it’s supposed to pick up for the next four hours. We were expecting about an 8-foot swell – it’s double that and still increasing which makes me wonder how big the swell on Monday is going to be. Good call to call it off. Safety is our number one concern.”

Among those to advance from today’s abbreviated competition were: Wassel, Oliver Kurtz (USA), Mikey Bruneau (Haw), Derek Peters (USA), Fisher Heverly (USA) and Parker Coffin (USA).

Organizers expect competition to resume tomorrow as the current swell declines in size, however Surfline.com expects an even larger swell to arrive overnight Sunday for Monday, possibly washing the event out again.

A $130,000 5-star Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) event, the Volcom Pipe Pro will feature defending champion John John Florence (Hawaii), Josh Kerr (Australia), Bruce Irons (Hawaii), Dylan Graves (Puerto Rico), Tanner & Dane Gudauskas (California), Wiggolly Dantas (Brazil), Joan Duru (France), Balaram Stack (New York), and Hawaii chargers Ian Walsh, Dusty Payne, and Jamie O’Brien.

The top three seeds in the event; Kerr, Florence and Payne will showcase their skills at The Banzai in preparation for the upcoming 2012 World Tour.

RESULTS:

Surfers shown in order of 1st through 4th. Scores shown are based on each surfer’s best 2 rides and are out of a maximum 20 points.

Trials Round 1

H1: Tom Dosland (Haw) 7.33pts: David Wassel (Haw) 6.06pts; Derek Ho (Haw) 3.00pts: Morgan Faulkner (Haw) 0.00pts

H2: Stephen Koehne (Haw) 11.37pts; Parker Coffin (USA) 8.34pts; Eala Stewart (Haw) 7.73pts; Mark Healey (Haw) 5.83pts

H3: Edrick Baldwin (Haw) 5.34pts; Jason Frederico (Haw) 3.26pts; Burger Nozaki (Haw) 1.67pts; Kamalei Alexander (Haw) 0.00pts

Trials Round 2

H1: David Wassel (Haw) 7.34pts; Stephen Koehne (Haw) 7.27pts; Ezra Sitt (Haw) 4.00pts; Tom Dosland (Haw) 1.70pts

H2: Parker Coffin (USA) 5.70pts; Kawai Lindo (Haw) 3.67pts; Edrick Baldwin (Haw) 1.80pts; Jason Frederico (Haw) 1.50pts

Round 1

H1: Oliver Kurtz (USA) 7.37pts; Mikey Bruneau (Haw) 7.33pts; Dege O’ Connell (Haw) 2.00pts; Matthew Bromley (ZAF) 1.23pts

H2: Derek Peters (USA) 5.50pts; Fisher Heverly (USA) 4.00pts; Charlie Carroll (Haw) 3.33pts; Kahea Hart (Haw) 2.44pts