When did Winter surfing become crowded?

that video made me laugh for a week!

 

its vacation for a lot of people, SHARKEY! 30 heads out at 2nd beach too! its never like that! check Monday when its all over?

 

Well according to Surfline the water temp is 50 at Matuntuck as of right now... Which is where you were referring to in your post.
Water in the bay heats up and cools off faster. So the bay temp is irrelevant. It will be much closer to the air temp than the ocean.
And 50 is very warm for this time of year.

 

Second day of a swell on a weekday, no one surfs then, 'cept Barry and I.

 

When it's vacation time and green (or better) on Surfline, you'll see all sorts of people out on the water. Kinda like that scene in "Jaws" when the mob of fisherman in overloaded boats head out to find the shark.

 

It was a mob scene at Matunuck yesterday, true . . . but everybody seemed to get waves. I was there and gone before 9:30, and there were lots of waves being had by lots of people . . . I agree with the politicians who say we need to put Americans back to work though, it's clear lots of people had the day off -- including me! There was mainly a pleasant vibe in the water for the time I was in, only one or two aggro folks complaining about drops ins . . . which are not that uncommon at Matunuck, people tend to think a party wave is ok, and when it's the regulars you know that tends to go ok, or lots of times a couple of people pop up and one goes right, one goes left . . . It was chilly, but a nice day to surf.

 

I love the blurb on winter riding in your first vignette.

 

It seems to me that you're more angry about the spots with webcams being crowded, rather than it being crowded in the winter.

 

" It was chilly, but a nice day to surf"

Agabinet just answered your question. Waves have been pretty darn good with Mild weather.

 

afar

 

It's not the first sport to get popularized . . . I remember when climbing at the local crag was the province of a few local in-the-know types . . . then you started getting the college outing clubs, then you got the yuppies (guilty), and then their kids when the high schools outing clubs started coming, and then it was climbing walls and birthday parties. It peaked and then dropped, but it's still more crowded than it used to be.

I think surfing is the same way . . . I think it will peak and drop too, but it will be more crowded than it was ten years ago for sure. I can sympathize with wishing it didn't happen, but gotta be realistic. It's like fighting the SUPers. They are here to stay. You can beat on 'em, but you can't beat 'em, I watched my buddy, a decades long RI local, on a 7'10" SUP, whipping past prone longboarders at Matunuck yesterday. If it's fun and it works, people are gonna do it. Hey, I like my line up quiet -- I can't stand the folks who whoop and yell every time they pop up, or their friends pop up. But I can't let it harsh my wave . . .

Yeah, I think winter surfing became a thing in the last couple of years, lots more people doing it than before, and especially during the holiday break season. I think we'll have a bit less crowds once the holidays are over, but winter surfers are here to stay. It's still better than the amazing crowds of summer.

 

That's a book by Graham Greene . . . The End of The Afar. And a movie with Pierce Brosnan, The Thomas Crown Afar.

 

one more thing to your point. Wetsuite Technology has come a long way to allow my northern brethren more H20 in the winter.

 

Lolz that cracked me up.

 

Hey, I just got the tweet, longboard wave at Matunuck! I will throw on my thermalution heated shirt, my yamamoto closed cell foam ultralight hooded wetsuite, pack my vanity drone for video and head down surf with my 12 closest brahs . . . and my agent . . . we are ultra hard core winter surfers . . . don't tell anyone else, ok?

 

We can blame ourselves for it getting more and more crowded. Most of us talk about how "real surfers" surf year round and not just in the Summer. If someone on here ever says they don't surf in the Winter, they get verbally abused and piled on by everybody (including me) for being a fair weather kook. So we can't have it both ways. Let people be fair weather kooks and don't make fun of them and maybe they won't get the idea to surf in the Winter too so that they can fit in or be a "real surfer" as well, just a suggestion, one I think i'm going to try myself.

Having said all that, I've been surfing an empty beach for the past 3 months, almost always alone and the water is nearly 80 freaking degrees here in CFL. Just gotta know where to look.