I decided to book a spontaneous wakesurf trip to Turks and Caicos to visit some friends I met through Instagram who run a successful watersports charter WakeToWakeTC https://waketowake.tc/  @WaketoWakeTC. However, this was not a vacation, this was a mission to obtain the clip that would go on to win the GoPro Hero7 Black Million Dollar Challenge , and I had 2 days in Turks and Caicos under my own money to win the Go Pro Million Dollar Challenge. The deadline to submit our clips to the GoPro Million Dollar Challenge was December 8^th. Within one hour of being on the boat my first morning on December 5^th, the wild and friendly @jojothedolphin showed interest in playing. Right away we moved the boat faster to create a Wakesurfing wave for the dolphin to Wakesurf but JoJo the dolphin didn’t bite. So we decided to throw the sub-wings in the water. The sub wing is a swiveling two piece wing that is dragged behind the boat at slow speeds and simulates a flying underwater sensation while being in full control of your depth and movements. After about 30 minutes of slowly cruising with JoJo the dolphin, I decided to hop on the sub wing that had the GoPro Hero7 Black attached, and take my attempts at luring the dolphin over to play. After a few minutes JoJo the dolphin warmed up to us and began swimming, playing and smiling almost as if he knew “Yea, here’s your GoPro million dollar Challenge clip ;) “ https://www.instagram.com/p/BrD4XkpniN7.  . Over 26,000+ Clips were submitted to the GoPro Hero7 Black Million Dollar Challenge, and only 56 were chosen as winners to be in the new Hero7 Black Promo video . Not only did our clip get chosen, but it made the COVER of the video and all the press releases! https://investor.gopro.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/GoPro-Awards-1-Million-Dollars-to-HERO7-Black-Customers-for-Crowd-Sourced-Highlight-Video/default.aspx

Day one of the trip included Foil Surfing over the beautiful coral reefs https://www.instagram.com/p/BrdkyfoHWJs/

Day two was my famous and viral video concept – Hijacking a Boat Wake https://www.instagram.com/p/BrOAn60HIN0/ as well as wakesurfing tricks  - https://www.instagram.com/p/Brid1mFH6ev/

 The 3^rd and Final day, just hours before my flight home, we captured the famous “wakesurfing with dolphins” clip https://www.instagram.com/p/BrfuYDMHKjt/

This was all filmed in 2.5 days in Turks and Caicos with https://waketowake.tc/. This was probably one of the best trips of my life. We captured the JoJo the dolphin subwing clip within our first hour on the boat! Absolutely stoked and honored to not only make the cut in the new GoPro Hero7 Black Promo Video, but to also make the cover! If you didn't see my instagram story www.instagram.com/AustinKeen47 , I'll say it again - THANK YOU ALL. Hopefully this will help my chances for a GoPro Sponsorship! HAHA!

 

In June I was invited to visit the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch. It's been my goal for a couple years to be the first person to run and skimboard out to the kelly slater wave, and I finally had a shot at it... but only one shot. I took a video on my phone of the wave and studied the timing for over an hour in the back room. Needless to say I was shaking like a leaf on a tree when I was finally standing on the edge waiting for the train (that creates the wave) to start moving. I couldn't believe I was even standing there. When I originally told corporate what I wanted to do they wouldn't give me "approval" to skim it, but I decided to go anyways for the slight chance I'd get the opportunity to try when I got there. Thanks to the awesome friendly and professional staff at the surf ranch, I was given an opportunity to try something nobody else has - Run, Drop, and Slide out to the Ultimate man made skimboarding wave at the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch. The good news is I made the long and difficult timed slide first try, the bad news is corporate was watching over webcam and told the employees to not let me skim out to it anymore. So I decided I'd just do a standard jet ski step off on to my skimboard. Well, they didn't want me to do that either since my skimboard didn't have a leash and wanted to prevent the board from getting washed up and damaging the thick vinyl liner covering the bottom of the pool. So we called the awesome maintenance guy over and had him drill a hole in my skimboard so I could attach a leash and still skim the wave.

I've been wanting/trying to go to Turks and Caicos for about 3 years now after meeting Mark Defraine from WaketoWakeTC on instagram. After seeing mark's instagram, and even sharing a couple of his epic videos Wakesurfing in Turks and Caicos, We began to communicate and keep in touch and he invited me to visit the beautiful islands of Turks and Caicos and come wakesurf. After our first trip being canceled due to an active Hurricane season in 2017, I became more and more antsy to visit Turks and Caicos and decided to finally pull the trigger in May and buy my ticket to do some wakesurfing in paradise. Last minute we pulled together an amazing crew, and needless to say the trip couldn't have went any better. We even got one of the very rare glassy days (that happen about 35 times a year) on our final full day of the trip. Please enjoy some photo highlights, and this epic video of us wakesurfing in turks and caicos and having a blast! 

 

 

Documenting my recent meetup with Marco Thompson who played a huge role in my wakesurfing career and has taught over 1000 people to wakesurf ... yes 1000. From wacky ideas and good vibes, to introducing me to my first wakesurfing sponsor thank you Marco 🤙😎. And special thanks to 1iopen.tv for doing a fantastic job at documenting an amazing day behind Marco's brand new Malibu Boats 25 LSV.

For More on The Crew:
Produced by @1iopenproductions at 1iopen.tv For behind the scenes of the making of this video and other adventure films visit youtube.com/thecrew1iopen @viv_smith @eriknachtrieb
www.1iopen.tv/#!the-crew/chp5
instagram.com/1iopenproductions/
facebook.com/1iopenproductions/

"Last time I Skimboarded I Busted my @$$..."

These are the most common words I hear from people when telling me about their first (and last) skimboarding experience. So I decided to make a full breakdown How to Skimboard series explaining some key tips that will keep you from eating sand if it's your first time, and to help you skim faster and get out further if it's not your first time. It's like getting a one hour skimboarding lesson in Laguna Beach!
I've also been getting a lot of questions about certain things like How to do the Monkey Crawl Drop and how to do Shuv-Its. So I decided to make a couple more advanced videos highlighting these tools as well.

Watch Now: How-To Page