who here has been surfing this week?

First time I ever surfed was just south of there, Hobe Sound. Then the next day we were in Stuart. Good times!

 

hey Zero if you hit assateague state look for the bald dude and the orange and white ashton shortboard.

 

That’s the one! Such a fun boart.

 

Will do! I don't hit that place a whole lot because I usually find something to ride prior to getting there. I do need to head that way more often though!

 

beware of the 'bino....

 

clean 2-4' at the 'trees this AM, got a few solid rides before both my surfing and the tide started to deteriorate

 

Going through withdrawals. My last off day it was awful, super chop conditions, so I just went back to sleep. I'll get out again sometime soon!

 

Not me... a few hardy souls out there getting mauled and the wind is probably 30mph with 35-40 gusts - straight offshore. Wind chill is in low 30’s and that’s a wrap.

 

didnt see this coming

 

Delmarva was fun (albeit windy) today. Prior to today I never understood why someone would wear a hood with no gloves. My entire surfing life of wetsuit strategy is simple - you add or subtract as you need. Gloves always preceed hoods- until today. Cold and windy. Water fine, air cold. Wore 4/3 with boots. My head was freaking freezing. Cut my session short. Surf was super clean. Mitchell will probably have decent pics! Nothing big but fun, user friendly surf.

 

Forecast is showing big bump early next week... mayhap this system

 

No pics from this morning....but i'll tell you for the past 10 years i have worn a hood without booties OR gloves many many times. Once my ears went to shit, got drilled out, and now are cleaned out but super sensitive, i'll rock the 3/2 or 4/3 with no boots or gloves anytime there is a cool breeze blowing and the water is below 65. the past month, i have basically been wearing a bonnet but no boots or gloves every single session and that is typical every May and October for me.

 

Been wearing the squid lid for weeks. Just started wearing thin 2mm gloves last session.

 

Repeated & constant exposure to wind whilst in the ocean is what causes Surfer's Ear condition. People in the tropics have to have their ears drilled out, too. It's got nada to do with air temp or water temp.

 

Yank's right... there are a lot of confounding variables that have, over the years, tilted research toward the cold water hypothesis. If you "happen" to study cold water surfers... and if you "happen" to only study populations that seek treatment... and if you "happen" to study a group of surfers that live in cold water climates... you're going to get very skewed research. Years of surfing, number of sessions per year, cold vs. warm., windy vs. glassy.... all confound the research. However, researchers have tried to eliminate these variables and have made at least some progress toward shedding light on the main factors that cause exostoses:

From a study done in September 1999:

Water salinity may not be the causative agent, but water temperature seems to be a significant factor.5 Water temperature below 17.5°C stimulates changes in the external auditory canal,6 and cold-water exposure leads to prolonged meatal erythema.2 Cold-water exposure is the most consistent characteristic in the history of patients with EAE.12,14 In fact, Deleyiannis and coworkers14 postulate that surfers of the warmer southern California waters (16.6°C) may require a longer duration of exposure to produce EAE. This is based on the finding that their patients (Oregon and northern California cold-water surfers) had developed significant ear canal obstruction after having surfed in water temperatures ranging from 9.4°C to 11.1°C for 5 years or longer, whereas the southern California surfers (30 [43%] of the 70 patients) in the study by DiBartolomeo3 showed the presence of exostoses after having surfed for longer than 10 years.

 

wknd morning waves were great. pulled on the rip curl 4/3, newly bought a month or so ago, no booties needed, on at the right time i'd say. Saturday was on da shtr contemplating, then buddy gave the heads up the LB was being strapped on. Met him on 8thE Folly, went cruising on mainly thi to stomach easy peelers. bit crowded, but didn't get dropped on(close, whistled that guy out of the lineup i think). next morning, lot more chilli bone, took out the 6'9" Loehr - convinced another buddy this time to come along. lil more sideshore n reckless, but all very manageable waves with n to s drift. had a few that went to shore, cutting back n forth. tomorrow is the most promising of mornings, right after lo tide, hoping to score - supposedly IOP might be where it's at for the most of the week

 

Surfed Saturday morning and again an hour before sunset. The morning session was about waist high with strong offshores that blinded me with spray as I paddled into waves. Saturday afternoon had a few knee to waist high sets left but it was mostly gone. I surfed alone til dark. No one else was out and the beach was empty. I was finally spooked out of the water by a sea creature thumping into my back. Wasn't able to figure out what it was but light was just about gone by that point so I didn't hang around to find out. Boots and no hood for me and I was fine. The water kept me warm. It was the walk off the beach that got me cold.

 

Did you say a 4/3 in Folly?

 

Some small waves this past weekend... but tide/wind/waves didn't work out well... too high in the morning, blow out and small in the afternoon

Either way- it's starting to get cold... not the water, but the air. Had the old 4/3 on already... but I guess it's that time of year

 

Got it Saturday morning, waist to chest liners, mellow crew. Long long rides on the LB. Some grom, trying to be polite, complimented my board. It's a 20 year old 9' single fin Mindless with lots of rocker and is pretty beat up. He was shredding it on an old 7' thick board. We were both getting waves from outside to the sand, he was turning every other second. Me not so much.

Yesterday, by the time I got off work, the north ground swell was headhigh and the wind was blowing from the south at 20. Gnarly. Closed out. Breaking way outside on the low tide. Took a pass.

This morning it cleaned up, and dropped to chest high peaks with light wind, making some glassy sections. Got a few nice ones, then the wind picked up againne and made it wonky, and a paddle fest. I was doing the internal dialogue "oh well, at least I got out here and enjoyed it, time to go to work", and paddled in to the inside, and got one nice peak, had to really weight forward on my 6'6" NA round nose round tail - and it went zoom - and I got a juicy one into the shore break and some old lady walking by gave me a thumbs up, which was cool. Life is goode.