Years Surfing + Top Two spots

and there it goes...

It's always interesting how this happens. But it does, always, happen....

Lost topic, off topic. Running through the trees.

Looking at the last couple of posts, this thread is now, officially, derailed...

 

Potomac tidal bore...

I stayed on topic, ace. Or is it 'Grasshopper...?'

If you're officially changing topics ? lol, sure why not...

The Bing was all I could afford. It was used & dinged & tore up. But it worked. Perfect for broke college kid working in restaurants for the summer.

As for the tidal bore...dang, man, you're telling too many people ! Dawn patrol on the Potomac was awesome today. That tidal bore at the juncture of the Potomac & the Anacostia was working like a sick witch, perfect crumbly 6' beauties (rights) that took me all the way to Old Town. Legs are fried from the mile+ journey. Only 2 other guys out. We caught rides back up the river with the DC Police boat.

But don't tell anyone. It's a secret spot.

 

Washington, DC: HQ of the United States of America Team USA Olympic Kayak & Olympic Canoe squads.

Most people think the teams are based out west. Nope. Right here in Class 5+ death trap rapids on the Potomac River.

Gotta go....tidal bore gettin' ready to froth...

 

The journey began in 1975 & never let up. 35 glorious years & still going strong (except for the knees on occasion). 1st board was a Steve Walden something or other w/ dings & ducktape. I will still charged w/ the short board when it ramps up & cruise w/ the long board when it's mellow & appropriate. 4-5 foot overhead Blacks Beach with my buddies & 40 dolphins surfing & jumping the waves was a memory I will never forget. Spent a winter on the North Shore back in 89 & surfed w/ Bradshaw & Erickson out at Kammies & Sunset. I experienced a 2 wave hold-down @ Allegator Rock that really shook me to the core & humbled me. Todd Chaser died out there some years later. Barbados has been one of my favorite spots. I would love to go deep into the South Pacific & surf Tuamoto or Rarotonga. More locally, Rhode Island's cobble stone pts.... At least once before I'm to old!!!!

 

Amazing, thanks for sharing! I can only hope I'll still be healthy and stoked in 2040.

 

I started surfing in 1977 @ 18 when I went to school in Daytona. First board was a 6'11" Sebastion Surfboards single fin, swallow tail. Spent 5 years in Fla and then 2 up in New England - spent the last 25 in Va, so I usually head to the Outer Banks for surf.

Traveled a bit Baja, SD, Santa Cruz/Monterey, Costa, Nica, Peru- still haven't been to Hawaii yet
Been able to take a couple good surf trips a year over the last 7 or 8 years. Probably got some of my best waves @ empty point breaks in Nica in 2007.
Still remember my first REAL hurricane swell - David in 79. Huge hollow barrels all day long!! Still brings a smile to my face thinking of pulling into those

Even as I get older and have to work harder to stay in shape to surf, I still love to surf as much as I ever did !. I have a good group of friends I have surfed with over the last 20 years.

 

been surfing since 1912, fav spot, assawoman bay.

 

I have a good group of friends I have surfed with over the last 20 years. JTS

What he said. Huge.

 

IMO this is one of the best threads ever. All about stoke and the accounts from back in the day added to it tremendously.

I started body boarding back in 78 and will always remember a week in obx in '80, fresh out of high school, sleeping in my parents car, totally classic.

I started standing up late in life in 2003 and instantly was wondering why I hadn't been surfing my whole life. Winter of 07 I decided I HAD to get proficient and went to Costa alone. The next summer I quit my job and spent the summer up in Montauk, surfing my ass off. Then decided to keep it rolling and headed to Costa for the winter. Surfed more than 200 days that year! ( I know, why'd I come back? )

Favorite spots

Boca Barranca- super long left point break near Puntarenas. I've never gotten it perfect, but I've gotten it really good!

Montauk- when it's right, it's an amazing wave.

 

I've surfed now for 20 yrs. Was a kook for the first 5 til I started surfing year round. I grew up in Kansas so I didnt see the ocean til I was 23. I also ws very nearsighted so that didnt help. I met a 75 yr old guy at Assateague wearing a funny hat and riding a long board. He was originally from San Onofre. At that point I decided "Theres the fountain of Youth I gotta try this. Hooked ever since. Now I've had laser on my eyes so I can see perfectly and ride all the time. Better activity than any other and it is the fountain of youth. My favorite spot is Chincoteague where I live in the summer and feel spoiled cause we normally have waves and you can be alone. I've now surfed all over Cali, and most of the East coast except Maine and NY.
Most awesome breaks I've surfed and love. Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz, WindandSea, La Jolla, Salmon Creek, Sonoma County Cali, Boca Baranca and Playa Hermosa Costa Rica. Favorite Hurricane session: Cape May, NJ Hurricane Felix. 12 ft for a week and 20 mph north winds. 2nd Hurricane Alberto 1, Chincoteague Perfect 6 ft A frames continous tubes both directions, no leash

 

Yeah, I already answer the original post, but after reading everyone great posts, it has me thinking of years past...

I will never forget the first time I saw someone surfing. It is an image that I still have in my head clear as day... It was probably 1989-1990. My dad and I made a day trip out to OC MD like we used to do all summer. We were out on a beach at the North end of the OC MD boardwalk... I remember, after bodysurfing with my dad all day, we were packing up and leaving... The lifeguards had just packed up and gone in for the day... It was probably 5:30ish in the evening... And as we were walking back down the boardwalk, I saw two guys with longboards run out to the edge of the water and paddle out. My dad and I sat and watched them for about 15 minutes. I was MEZMORIZED. I could not figure out how these guys were even standing up and balancing on those boards. It made no sense to me. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen at the time, and all I could think was MAN.... I HAVE to do that. I still remember exactly what these guys boards looked like... The colors, the patterns. And they were good surfers too. It was a chest high day and they were tearing it up... for 1989 anyway.... One of the most influential moments of my life...

What was once a brief moment, on the boardwalk with my dad (who taught me to love the ocean), that turned into a now life long journey that has taken me to places I never thought I would be.... I knew that one day I would surf, but I NEVER in a million years, as a 9 year old standing on the boardwalk in OC would I have thought that surfing would eventually take over my life.... That light clicked on in my head in the summer of 1989, and I have never been able to turn it off (nor do I want to)

 

same exact memory.
i sat on the beach in south mantoloking in summer 1976 watching pj ride the single fin so graceful and in tune with the waves and was immediately struck with the knowledge that i was going to surf and never stop for the rest of my life all the time i have to live at the beach forget school forget work i'm going to do this.
i was 12.
i got a surfboard.
35 years later i'm surfing over 125 days a year,this same beach.

 

Off topic but i remember when the ASP used to make east coast tour stops, they had an event in OCMD one of the summers i lived there...probably '82..'83 time frame. Even though some of the top pros who were on tour at the time didnt show (Mark Richards for one), it blew my mind how good these guys surfed the little waves we had..i mean the event was in july or something...one of the locals i recognized even got a seed to surf in it.

 

Zach and beachbreak, yes, the same type of memory. Late August evening in 1972 or '73, sitting on a lifeguard stand in OCMD with my best friend watching the surfers go at it. We were near the pier on the jetty side, with surfers grouped on the south side of the pier. It must have been a decent swell because even as a non-surfer I thought it was big. I would've been 11or 12, but like Zach, I remember the colors of boards, the surfers, the sky, the water - there was something going on out there that I just had to be part of. (Hey MDSurfer, maybe I was watching you!!!)

I didn't land a board until '78 (a 7-foot Sundancer bought from Dale Showell himself), and didn't make it work until the summer of '79 when I lived in OC for the summer and worked at Phillips. There were about a half dozen of us from the kitchen who learned to surf that summer. We even got help from a local who worked at Phillips named Andy Brown. Depending on the tide, he would pick the street we would meet at each morning. Anyway, we learned a lot from him.

So 30+ years later I'm still at it. As the guys who don't live at beach know, you kind of phase in and out of surfing over time when you're inland. You never really give it up, but some years it's just harder to get in the water than others. I'm sure the younger guys don't quite understand that way of thinking, but it's just how it happens. You end up coaching soccer, or there's work, or...just life.

Anyway, I guess I had my mid-life crisis while staring down 50, and rededicated myself to surfing. I worked down to my high school weight (although it's still not distributed the same way ), got some new gear, and spent more time in the water over the last two years than in a long, long time. Even surfed through the winter for the first time in decades, enjoying every cold minute.

The best thing about surfing is, while I'm in the water I can "find" that 12-year-old who had sat on a lifeguard stand with his whole life in front of him, and I can "find" that cocky 19-year-old who became a better surfer with each summer morning session, and I can find them in a way that's very real and authentic. It's not the often forced and melancholy type of nostalgia that comes from sitting around with friends you don't see very often over a couple of beers. I know the next wave I catch might be the best one of my life (or one of the most memorable).

There still is "possibility" and "opportunity" anytime I paddle out. As you grow older you find less and less things that can offer this. And what's even cooler now is that I'm usually paddling out with my son, and often one of the guys from Phillips that I learned to surf with 30 years ago. Again, there are few activities in life that would offer me those kind of connections. It's really, really magical, and like Zach said, I had know idea where simply "wanting to surfing" would take me. It's been an amazing ride.

Sorry for going off topic, and going on so long. It's been inspiring reading this thread.

 

Thanks to everyone for sharing!!!
Been in the water 20 + years. Started body boarding as a kid in the late 80s early 90s in Carolina. My dad surfed and would take my brother and I along with him. What a great gift... being introduced to the ocean and surfing! I started long boarding the small stuff in my early teens but other "activities" kept me out of the water towards the end of high school. After graduation I figured out I was heading down the wrong path in life and took up surfing full-time, rain or shine, year round... literally every chance I got. Since that time 12 years ago I have had the opportunity to surf some awesome spots but my favorites are:

1. La Bocanna EL Salvador- a SICK A frame left cobblestone reef in El Salvador (just up from sunzal... not a secret/ one of the more crowded spots on the west coast... so don't feel bad about spilling the goods)
2, This is a new one that jumped up over all my other favorite waves... probably cause I ride it every day but...Boat Basin Micronesia- the most perfect right under 3 ft and a left that goes as big as you can... both super shallow and hollow on the regular

Wish list
1. Indo
2. P-Pass