Halloween Swell '91 Surfing RC's in Florida Perfect Storm 1991

I surfed this at age 16! Lake Worth Pier! Sooo big, scary and drifty! I couldn't get the video to play from work, but I am sure I wasn't one of the good surfers, although if there was a terrified 6'1 135lb guy looking terrified, that was probably me. There were a few amazing guys out there, but the rest of us were just trying to stay alive...

 

"Surfing With The Alien" - Joe Satriani

That's gotta be some of the biggest Gulf surf I've seen. Looks similar in size and shape to my local during wintertime.

 

I'll definitely check it out, hospital internet is very restricted. Its hard to believe that '91 happened that long ago, but the Florida surf scene was pretty sweet back then. A little too aggressive, but there were some really amazing guys out there in Lake worth, Reef Road, Juno (before there was a Juno pier), and Jupiter Inlet back when I was just a grom. I miss a lot about those days, everything but the sea lice and the manowar...

 

Ahhh, got it. Saw the "gulfster" in the link and trudged into it from there. Thanks for being gentle with me...maybe next time I can reciprocate with a nice reach-around.

 

Suite.

 

Amazing video, thanks!

 

Did somebody say Halloween?


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Wow, great blast from the past DP! Love the intro, those guys are soooo baked. Great sounds and great footage.

On Halloween Day, a few of us paddled over to Reef Road. I was 31. In the morning the waves were the size of the waves in the video, maybe a bit bigger, DOH plus on sets. Most of us were surfing thrusters inthe 6'2" to 6'6" range, a bit thicker than todays boards,maybe 2 and 3/4 to 3" thick.

It was super clean and fun, then it started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Our boards couldn't handle it. We got out around noon time, it was TOH plus.There was some old dude in a kayak that was real long and narrow, and he was charging the big outside sets, and making it. If he ate it, he would have been torn to shreds. By late afternoon, boulders lining the inlet were being displaced by the surge, it was breaking inside the inlet maybe 12 footers, and there was a glory right off the end of the south jetty breaking like a reverse Pumphouse on steroids, no one would try it. It had 25 foot faces. We all stood on the inlet's north wall, way way inside the mouth so we wouldn't get swept away, and watched in amazement.

 

Florida got the biggest/best of that swell. Surfed Masonboro Island w/ my smelly Basque roomate @ the time. It was at the peak of the swell and like it does at Mase the swell was diluted just enough to be insanely fun, somewhat overhead and super clean behind the jetty because it was a little windy NE. No crowd, maybe 10 spread out down the beach, perfect sunny day. Loggers were riding the big peaks right off the jetties in the inlet, biggest I had ever seen it at that quality. Funny how I can remember almost every wave in that sesh including the dudes paddling up the faces of waves I was dropping in. It was a very hard paddle back across the inlet after that epic session, definitely an ironman day to be sure. That was a great example of the planets lining up perfectly for sure.