It's Friday, not Wednesday, we're aware of that, but SUPthemag.com's new feature the Wednesday Voice is too good to not spread the word. Each Wednesday, the mag sits down with the personalities that make standup paddling great--from the athletes to industry insiders to event organizers and everyone in between.

This weeks Wednesday Voice, they talk with Huntington Beach standup surfer Daniel Hughes.



This is only the second Wednesday Voice, so be sure to catch up by checking out the first installment.
The Wednesday Voice: Sayulita Classic

There are ordinary amphipods, known to be mostly tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that thrive in aquatic environments around the world, and now there are "supergiant" amphipods, which are 10 times larger and, frankly, quite freakish-looking (see video and photo).



British scientists made the remarkable discovery by accident while participating in a joint expedition with New Zealand scientists to probe the depths of the Kermadec Trench, north of New Zealand.

Using a large metal trap outfitted with cameras, they'd hoped to haul up a species of deep-sea snailfish that had not been captured in more than 60 years. Instead they hauled up, from nearly 33,000 feet below, seven milky-white amphipods measuring to about 11 inches, or the size of small lobsters. (Ordinary amphipods barely exceed 1 inch.)

Dr. Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab, said on the facility's website, "The moment the traps came on deck we were elated at the sight of the snailfish as we have been after these fish for years. However, seconds later, I stopped and thought, 'What on earth is that?' It's a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach.

The mysterious find was not totally unprecedented. The term 'supergiant' was used by American scientists who hauled up unusually large amphipods off Hawaii in the 1980s.

Jamieson added: "The surprising thing is that we have already been to this deep trench twice and had never come across these animals before. In fact a few days after the discovery we deployed all the equipment again on the same site and we didn't photograph or capture a single supergiant; they were there for a day and gone the next."

While they only caught seven of the enormous amphipods, they saw several others, including some that measured about 13 inches.

The seven specimens were being kept in Wellington, New Zealand, until the expedition is concluded.

-- Image showing "supergiant" amphipods is courtesy of the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab

Even though as the crow flies, the postage-stamp town of Tenna, Switzerland, isn't far from historic resorts like St. Moritz and Davos, Tenna is a one-horse town, one-shop, one-school, and one t-bar town. And that t-bar, the only ski lift in the whole valley, was on its last legs. But rather than let it die, locals raised enough money to update it and then went a step further: They built the world's first solar-powered ski lift.

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It's more than solar-powered, in fact -- it's a smart investment. The Tenna lift generates 90,000 kilowatts a year, or three times the juice needed to run the lift, and the extra power goes back into the grid, which makes money for the town, which can pay residents back.

So what happens to the 82 solar "wings" when it dumps? Not a problem, because they rotate to follow the path of the sun in the sky and can be tilted to perpendicular during a storm, so there's no load and the snow slides right off.

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At $1.5 million, the project wasn't cheap, but considering the cost of a new or updated lift anyway, plus the open skies above most ski lift pathways, it's a no-brainer to use that area to offset the energy use. Other resorts might not gain 300 percent efficiency as in Tenna, where their modest lift shuttles 800 folks an hour and has a fraction of the energy requirements of, say, a high-speed quad, but if the offset is even a quarter of the energy used for shuttling people uphill, that's a lot less carbon going up in smoke. - Michael Frank

Fans of sailing and cool imagery regarding sailing may recall an advertisement photo from a few years ago showing Alex Thomson in a suit standing on the keel of his racing yacht, Hugo Boss, as it was swiftly under sail with the keel free of the water. Many believed the image to have been photo-shopped and Thomson recently set out to prove these people wrong, by attempting the dangerous stunt with cameras rolling (see video).


How dangerous is the stunt? The 60-foot yacht weighs 8.2 tons and the keel alone weighs 4 tons. To allow for a "keel walk" the yacht requires a wind speed of between 17-19 knots; it must sail at 9 knots and at a 45-degree angle to lift the keel out of the water; and it must hold this position for 45-60 seconds.

Thomson, of Alex Thomson Racing, is the keel walker, and Ross Daniel is the skipper, but the unnamed jet-ski driver deserves considerable credit for making this work, after several failed attempts. Clearly, this kind of stunt is only for experts, and even then it's more than a little bit crazy.

Pro snowboarder Meesh Hytner is fortunate to be alive after surviving an avalanche recently while riding in the Colorado backcountry, and the accompanying video underscores how effective airbags can be if deployed in a timely manner. Hytner, who had been participating in an unofficial competition, was able to ride atop the substantial slab of cascading snow as if on a raft, thanks to her safety equipment.


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The video, captured in the Snake River Drainage, was provided to Back Country Access in the hope it'd promote avalanche safety and the importance of airbags, which are not used nearly enough by snowboarders and skiers who like to ride virgin backcountry powder, often in high-risk areas.

Hytner, who was able to remain on her back with her feet pointed downhill, told BCA, "I felt like I was riding a mattress down the stairs."