Surfing Where there are no Surfers

Lol, I'm back stateside, and there are PLENTY of surfers here.

Paddled out at *e yesterday, and I was the second guy out by virtue of sprinting pretty much straight from PCH to the water. Caught a couple of decent ones early before the crowd bumped up to around 15. Man, water here is COLD, especially when you're dawn patrolling in nothing but shorts and a long-sleeved rashy. *e was doing its usual Chest-Hi thing with a warbly left-hander peeling off the point. Nice slow workable shoulder finishing off with a sometimes-barrel before bodywhomping shorey. Not much of a booger wave, but real pretty and relaxing for a morning sesh.

I got away from the crowd for a little bit, paddling way the heck out to "third" peak and picking off a bomb set. Pretty HH+ drop into a blue closing-out wall. Nice drop, then nothing. Not really worth the wait for the big sets to swing wide. Fun sesh even if it was a little crowded. Stoked because next week is going to be all non-stop barrelfests with maybe 2-3 guys out.

 

Man, Marie wiped out my homebreak, and I'm not going back to the island for a long time. What a bummer.

Still, there's a little sandbar that's built-in at a beach which is typically flat, offshore, and empty. I paddled out there during Marie, Norbert, and the run of Souths we've been having. It's short, closed-out and stompy, but still better than nothing.

The best day was during the big SW two weeks ago. Liquid lunch, sunny, high-70's with moderate offshores (at this place) which were onshore and blowing out the surf everywhere else. Some tourons on the beach but nobody in the water. I paddled out along the edge of the tall stoney seawall, taking advantage of a sandy soup backwashy rip to skitch out dry-haired. Water was freaking cold to be skinning it, but the air was warm. Further down the seawall, it was DOH+ and blasting huge spray fans on the backwash. Way to sketchy to surf down there.

So I sat on my little corner and waited for a peaky set to come through. One wave out of 5 would throw a nice CH-HH tube right off the corner of the seawall, that sometimes held up for 50-60 yards before closing out practically on the sand. A second right-hander showed up further down the beach, away from the rocks, and a rare clean, fast, stompy left would peel off in that same spot. Plenty of waves all to my lonesome. Clear, cold, blue water, and I could see all the way to the sandy bottom. A pod of dolphins swam by and one charged a set wave, right at me, veering off as the wave broke, and leaping out the back. Awesome, but sorta scary. They are f-ing FAST!

Got some barrels, threw some spray, launched, but didn't land, a few tentative airs. Near the end of my session, I dropped a OH closeout bomber, right into a huge backwash. Holy sweet stinky tofu, did I get destroyed! Blown up in the air, upside-down in a spread-eagle cartwheel. Gone were my fins, gone were my socks, just about lost my boardies too. Haha!

I was going to paddle in, but then three tourons showed up. One on a boog (t-shirt, no fins), one on a blackball beater (or some sort of foam shortie) and one on a log. They paddled out during a lull. When I say "paddled" I mean they sort of splish-splashed around in the impact zone after waddling out into chest-deep water, oblivious. This was simply too good to miss, and I prayed fervently for a cleanup set to stomp on drownie's 1, 2, and 3.

My prayers were answered after a few minutes. I waited until there was no possible way they could escape, and the shouted gleefully "OUTSIDE!!", sat back, and watched the carnage. Boog tried to paddle for the wave, from pretty much under the lip, and got hucked over the falls upside-down. Blackball tried to duckdive, and almost made it, but he got dragged backwards over the falls as well. I couldn't see Logger real well, but I think he just laid there with a deer-in-the-headlights expression as the lip dropped on his head. It wasn't a big wave, but it was square as heck. Watching those guys get smashed really made my day, because I'm a bad person.

 

Nice, back on my island. Will update with pics and deets later. Heard u were freezing our asses off stateside. Its 76 air and 80 water here BTW.

 

Oh f yeah. Its been good. Reel good. I might just not come back this time...

 

Why oh why did I even come back?

Well, actually, today was pretty sick. Got a few solid in-and-outs. Also, I need new boards. And mo money never hurts.

 

Whoo! That was a great trip! No time to write a novel, so I'll just explain the photos.

That's ridiculously clean morning trade swell rolling in down south at $$n$$ng on the second day of an epic round-the-island surf trip. There wasn't much happening on the West side, with AP and all the other spots in their usual winter hibernation. However, once we got down to $$n$$ng and turned the corner, it was on! Solid HH-OH tradeswell all the way up the coast. Spent a day in the $$n$$ng area, hitting the reef breaks there. Then two more days at the rivermouths and beachbreaks around **in**. Then continued up the coast to my more familiar stomping grounds of ***ng**g, and ba*****d**g.

After that, we pressed north in time to catch some swell from one of the winter storm systems that pounded Japan, but stayed at a high enough lattitude to leave us with dry sunny offshore days and long-period groomed swell around *i*an and **lon*. Since it was "winter" the only people out at most of the spots were the ones I travelled with. Water still around 80.

Midway through the trip, pretty much on the tropic of cancer, we stopped at a little hotel made from a beached ship. sitting on the patio of the boatel as the sun set behind the steep jungle-covered mountains, I watched a little nameless creek mouth sandbar peeling off perfect evening glass A-frames. I had a big green bottle of local beer to my left, the glowing coals of the bbq to my right, and I was surfed out, pickled from the salt water, chu bu'shah on local seafood, and buzzed. All was right with the world and I was thinking: maybe this time I really won't go back. I remember that thought and that moment very vividly. Probably moreso than any of even the best rides of that trip.

But I did come back. Then, yesterday was pretty epic during lunch. And today was good too. And this weekend. And next week's forecast continues... So I guess I'll stick around a bit longer.

 

Hey, I found pics of Speedbumps.

 

That's supposed to be an animated gif because the wave barrels further down the line. Anybody know how to directly upload a gif? I can only use the basic uploader for some reason.

 

Ok, here are the actual pictures of Speedbumps and some more from my secret island.

 

Seeing those hurricanes hit the EC while we've got flatness out here makes me nostalgic for Coca Beach.

Waaaaaay back in the day when I was completely unattached and footloose, I was living in a converted motel right on the beach, walking distance from the pier. It was a rainy fall with a lot of frustratingly flat days, but there were some gems. My most memorable session was a random wave that showed up on a weekend.

It had been raining for days, seemed like. Off-and-on thunder and occasional downpours. The sky this Saturday or Sunday (can't remember) was all blue-grey with puffs of cumulus under a heavy deck of high undulating stratus. Looking out over the water from the balcony of the motel-cum-apartments, I could see where the rain was by the darker spots in the cloudy sky. It wasn't raining at my place, but the parking lot was full of water from a recent downpour and thunder was grumbling in the distance. Winds were light offshore and the water was groomed flatness. There was a tiny pulse, but it wasn't even breaking at the pier or on the sandbars out front.

Having absolutely nothing better to do, I tossed my gear in the blazer and headed south to see what I could find down in Brevard. I thought I might to to Spannie or even the inlet and scrounge up something--though I knew it would be a total zoo since it was a weekend.

As I rolled down the A1A, I hit a heavy rainstorm right around PAFB. The road was under construction, so it wasn't draining right. The rain was so heavy, I couldn't see even with the wipers on full, and I was driving through 8 inches of water, fountains of it flying up on both sides of the vehicle. Fun.

I kept going south, past town, past some hotels, and then I--on a whim--decided to turn into a little beach park with a parking lot and boardwalks down to the water. I don't remember the name, it wasn't any sort of surf spot, and the lot was empty. I had driven out of the rain, and just thought I'd check it. I parked facing the dune, and climbed up on top of the Blazer. To the right were some million-dollar beach homes with roof-top decks and really nice-looking yards facing the ocean. They were perched up on a little cliff over the beach. I was thinking how great it would be to live right on the water with a hammock strung up in the back where I could chill and watch the surf roll in. I remember an owl weathervane on top of one house, silouetted against the mottled gunmetal sky. The water oil-slick glass and the same color as the clouds, and--as I watched in semi-disbelief--a wave broke on an outside bar and the shoulder ran 50+ yards all the way in to shore.

I popped the tailgate and pulled my gear out. Damp fin socks, rashy, and boardies. The little round stones of the parking lot were cool underfoot as I walked up to the boardwalk crossing the dune. I figured I had nothing but time, I'd just go out and wait for another wave to break on that sandbar.

There was nothing when I paddled out. Just a flat mirror reflecting the sky. I made it out to about where I estimated the wave had broken and sat on my board. With distant thunder rolling over the water, no wind, cool air and water, it was blissfully peaceful.