Kelly Slater’s Wave Pool Event As Told By Kelly

Renting a cherry picker requires a credit card and a signature, nothing more.

So, when we – being Michael Ciaramella, Lyon Herron and I – were denied entrance into the Kelly Slater Pool Party, Lemoore 2017 we talked to a man named Steve. He had what we needed to maybe get “the shot”, or just make a bit of scene outside of surfing’s worst kept secret. Plus, we already had a drone flying directly overhead, piloted by Matt Kurvin who hid from police in the backyard of some Leemorian’s home. We were fairly certain that we had “the shot”.

When they dropped off our new vantage point, I was given a short tutorial that I didn’t quite understand (how to drive, how to elevate, etc) and then left a machine with the ability to lift us 20 feet into the sky. After a bit of trial and error, we settled it just outside the gates and just beneath the powerlines across the street of Kelly Slater’s Wave Factory.

Like we weren’t going to talk about this at least one more time.

Photography

Lyon Herron

Previously, we had been skipping around Lemoore like high-school rejects who didn’t get invited to the popular kid’s Prom after-party. In this time we had posted our fair share of Insta stories. After I posted a live clip from atop our cherry picker, I tapped through our day up until then. To my greatest pleasure, in the “recently viewed by section” of our stories was none other than Kelly Slater. My heart, already 20 feet above ground, soared – just the thought that Kelly Slater, 11x World Champ was at that very moment, looking at our silly little social media stories while, possibly, the most historic event was occurring in his namesake! It was a strange validation to our well-documented misadventures. It is my biggest regret that I never took a screenshot to verify it.

With that said, here’s everything you need to know about Kelly Slater’s Future Classic as told by Kelly Slater.