Venezue­lan surf stars Rafael Pereira and Fran­cis­co Bel­lorin will re­turn to T&T's shores once again to de­fend their ti­tles at the Carib Pil­sner In­ter­na­tion­al Surf Fes­ti­val 2011 (ISF11) on In­di­an Ar­rival Day week­end, May 28-30. Last year in the Open Pro­fes­sion­al Di­vi­sion, Pereira walked away with the first-place ti­tle and US$3,000, while his fel­low coun­try­man, Bel­lorin, copped sec­ond place and a cash prize of US$1,100.

In the Pro­fes­sion­al Ju­niors Di­vi­sion (U21) the dy­nam­ic duo trad­ed places with Bel­lorin tak­ing first place and US$500, while Pereira took sec­ond place and US$250. Un­der the gen­er­ous pa­tron­age of Carib Brew­ery, the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, and the Min­istry of Sport as their pri­ma­ry spon­sors, the Surf­ing As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go will be host­ing the sec­ond an­nu­al Carib Pil­sner In­ter­na­tion­al Surf Fes­ti­val 2011 at Beach Break in scenic Sans Souci, Trinidad.

Ex­pec­ta­tions run high as the word spreads about the on­ly in­ter­na­tion­al surf event to be sched­uled as part of the West­ern At­lantic Pro Surf Se­ries (the on­ly pro­fes­sion­al surf tour on east coast of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca), with a whop­ping US$10,000 purse for the lo­cal leg of the tour. The pro­mot­ers of the event ex­pect to see a no­tice­able in­crease in the num­bers of lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants in 2011, with the re­turn of top-class pro­fes­sion­al surfers from USA, Brazil, Pe­ru, Uruguay, Ar­genti­na and Venezuela, as well as Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, among oth­ers. Dubbed Beach Break, Sans Souci is eas­i­ly the mec­ca of surf­ing in Trinidad. This cres­cent-shaped bay pro­vides a high qual­i­ty of pow­er­ful, con­testable waves break­ing on a rigid sand bar in a col­i­se­um set­ting.

Lo­cat­ed with­in a 90-minute dri­ve time from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, the or­gan­is­ers have arranged shut­tles and ac­com­mo­da­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants. This ac­tion-packed week­end has a stacked dai­ly itin­er­ary both on and off­shore, with three dif­fer­ent surf cat­e­gories-Ju­nior Pro, Leg­ends, and Open Pro class­es, as well as a spe­cial­ty night surf for when the sun sets. The ever pop­u­lar biki­ni com­pe­ti­tion will be tak­en to an­oth­er lev­el this year, with the largest ever cash prize in­cen­tive to date of US$1,000 and a manda­to­ry on­line par­tic­i­pant reg­is­tra­tion at the event's Face­book Page https://www.face­book.com/event.php?eid=120533528014912.Fran­cis­co Bel­lorin, win­ner, Pro­fes­sion­al Ju­niors Di­vi­sion In­ter­na­tion­al Surf Fes­ti­val 2010.

The beau­ti­ful women of the biki­ni con­test will dis­play their beach bod­ies along a pur­pose-built 16-foot Red­Bull run­way el­e­vat­ed over the beach. There is al­so a chance for the best pho­tog­ra­phers to win US$1,000 for the Best Ac­tion Shot, Best Mo­ment and the Best Scenery Shots. And as the sun sets on the venue on May 28, the surf­ing ac­tion will flow right in­to live mu­sic with the Leg­ends Beach Con­cert fea­tur­ing per­form­ers such as Or­ange Sky, Joint Pop, Skid Neve­ly, and Aaron Mar­quez .

For more in­for­ma­tion on this ex­trav­a­gan­za, con­tact surf­in­g­tandt@gmail.com or Kei­th Lewis at 868-775-1001. Al­so fol­low the event on Face­book via https://www.face­book.com/event.php?eid=120533528014912