I don't know how you all do it up there! You guys are hardcore! When I was a kid it didn't bother me as much. I would surf till I had literally had hyperthermia. My body would be numb and everything happened in slow motion. Even when I warmed up my hands and feet would continue to stay numb for hours. What the sorriest part of this story is that I live in Florida! Once the water temp gets down in the low 60's I really start having problems. It helps if I surf more often and try to get acclimated to the dropping water temp but its still not enough. Luckily our water temp here in Central Florida holds up at least until January/mid January or so. I've never worn a hoodie and I've tried the bootie thing several times but just can't get used to having them on my feet. Florida is pretty cool in that I can drive about 2hrs south to Sebastian Inlet and the water temp will actually be at least 10 degrees warmer. So if we have a good swell we'll shoot down there for a few days and camp out. Anyway sorry to digress..... You Yanks are hardcore!!!
Hardcore....or just young and dumb. lol Maybe they enjoy being miserable. lol Air temps are more of a determining factor this time of year. This site says(when you look at the forecast page in upper right hand corner) you should be wearing a 3/2 this morning. Air temp was in the 20s with water temp in the upper 50s. Good luck in a 3/2 in those type of conditions. I'm fine wearing a 3/2 in August. So how exactly that would keep me warm now is beyond me. Forget 4/3. It's full winter suit time now. There's also a lot of "macho stupidity" when people start giving wetsuit information/advice. I've seen people shivering with signs of hypothermia saying their warm. Just saying. Don't really get how being freezing and having your teeth shatter makes somebody hardcore. It's just miserable. Also, there's a big difference in personal tolerance to cold. No one size fits all. It's amazing the horrible advice that's given at surf shops in new england about wetsuit thickness.
Holy good God almighty!!!! Air temp 20, water temp 50's!!!! That's ridiculous! Luckily we are still skinning it down here. Usually round Thanksgiving we break out the spring suits. I've seen picts before of guys up north surfing and there was snow on the beach! Course we get snow on the beach down here but it comes in little brick packages! I remember when we were kids we would walk down the beach and jump the fences of the hotels (or sometimes just walk through the gate) and most of them would have hot tubs outside by the pool. We would jump in the hot tub and your wetsuit would suck up all that nice hot water and then you would dash out down the beach and paddle out. It was so sweet because you could hit the water and not even feel it. On a side note, do you guys actually get ice chunkies in the water or ice burgs up there?
After this cold snap you'll be in a 4/3 or 5/4/3 with boots, gloves and a hood if you're a human and not a seal. Next session without gloves will be mid to late May. Enjoy
I don't care what anyone says, surfing in cold water sucks. I don't mind down to the upper 50's but anything below that blows. If you want to surf year round in the Northeast be prepared to surf in 38 degree water with 20 degree air, snow on the beach, and 30 mph NW winds. Give me warm water anyday
I get the worst ice cream headaches and that's when the water temp is in the low 60's high 50's! The coldest I think I've surfed was about 55-56 degrees. I peed in my suit standing on the beach and then ran full bore hit the water and paddled as fast as could thinking I would generate some body heat. I got about 100 yards or so when all of a sudden I felt like I was having a heart attack! I freaked out and jumped off my board, the water was only about chest deep and I just sat there for a minute in sure panic! I thought surely I was dying! I didn't know if I was going to be able to make it back in. Finally I jumped back on my board, went in, ripped off my suit and sat naked in the car with the heat on full blast. After that I realized how the crab fisherman die the instant they hit that water. Its not that they get hyperthermia or whatever its that their heart is shocked but the instant freezing water! I surely thought I was having a heart attack that day! Once again you guys up Nort are hardcore!
I'll take the cold over the crowds on any day. Maybe I'm just a masochist, but there's something about duck diving under an icy wave that gets your adrenaline pumping! And there's just this awesome rush of heat to your skin for about 3 or 4 hours after a session. Maybe it's a similar thing to a runner's high...your body is miserable but you get a massive endorphin release as a result.
Bro from the warm side, you have no idea how cold it gets here. Temps can be in the single digits with 35mph wind with water temps hovering around 32 degrees in late january. My time in the water is about to end until late april so I don't go out in conditions like that or anything even remotely close to that. oh and nothing beats boogie boarding down an ice burg I don't know if chunks of ice form in ri. I've never seen it. The ocean is really hard to freeze. I know for sure it happens up in nova scotia/newfoundland. If you search on youtube you can find videos of it snowing while people are in the water. Crazy haha
This cold snap is certainly going to pull us into 4/3 weather I believe...but keep in mind that the water has been uncharacteristically warm this fall. I was warm surfing late October this year in just a 3/2!
The water went up 11 degrees in 17 days last year between mid April and early May. I think it was from 42 to 53 or something. Would have to check the records. But 53 felt like bath water I tell you after a long, cold winter out there. Pretty stoked I got that 5/4 Drylock for half price on whiskeys a couple months ago. Who knows when I'll bust it out. I'd agree with the desensitization to cold described here. I started surfing in February at the height of storm season when air was 19 with heavy winds and water was 36. Probably why I'll trunk it in low 60s and couldn't wait to last spring/summer. Cold as hell was all I knew for a fair while in my surfing so nothing turns me off. Stoke warms you up an additional 15-35 degrees depending on how stoked you are. That's a fact.
Yeah, um, this fall's water temperatures ain't abnormally high. Not t'all. Pretty typical, quite actually. The change into November usually signifies(SIGNIFY my brother) a contemplation of wetsuit change. 3 mils are nice and good until water hits 54-52.........and then that depends on whether the air temperatures cooperate. Two Sundays ago it was kind of hard offshore and the air was in the 40's, so yeah I put the 5 mil on.....yeah the water was probably 56, but the air, man, the air..........And the winds, man, the winds. I wasn't "TOO HOT" or anything. The winds, man, the winds...... If the water is 54 and it is 60 F out.....then a 3 mil is very nice like a southern California winter, but if the air temps drop then you throw on a thicker suit. That's all.......ain't no big thang. Ain't no advice or "STANDARD" one can give a cracker on when to change-up suits. Experience counts a little but not too much. It's just one of them thangs that happens. You adjust just like the swallows of Capistrano - by instinct....... If you wear a 3 mil too late......you get colder quicker. If you are contemplating a 3 mil then you ain't going to completely freeze, but you might not be as comfortable as you could have. Wearing a 5 or a 4 (a 4 mil being completely useless for NJ, unless you have the scratch to be so finely detailed. If so, go for it, but it's pretty much a waste of good crack money) in water under 55 is not going to have you "TOO HOT." If the air is under 50, and the water is hitting the low 50's, than ditch the 3 mil..........and the winds, man, the winds.... Boots: 59 F Gloves: 57-56 F...........Now that's required by law. Some dudes on here rock the 3 mil in mid-March. I highly advise against that, considering the water is in the low to mid 40's.......... Everybody has that period each Fall and Spring when they wonder what thickness to wear. You aren't alone. It happens to everyone .......every year. It's part of the magic of east coast surfing........... I love you.
I feel like such a douche, I have a .5 mill long sleeve top only. For when the water drops to the low 70's. Helps to get rid of the chills. A bud also gave me his fullsuit, I think it's a 3/2. Haven't HAD to use it yet. Woohoo s. Fl. Use all are hard core up der!
I've actually thrown a spring suit over my full and it worked out pretty well. Don't remember the thickness of the suits, couldn't have been very thick cause I actually had pretty good flexibility. I think I had a hole in my full suit in the peepee area and that's originally why I did it. Wetsuit technology has come a long way but I feel as if we could do way more in the advancement of keeping us warm in the water. Maybe like those bags that you use to put heat on sore muscles. Maybe there's a way to put that gel into a wetsuit to keep you warm, or maybe we could just make slightly radioactive wetsuits. I'd sacrifice a year or two of life on the back end for some extremely warm surfing in good waves! Has anyone tried the Quicksilver wetsuit that has the battery operated heater in it?
I have a body glove hooded vest that a friend who quit surfing gave me a couple of years ago. I think it is one of the thicker models and it is pretty old but in good shape. It is one of those hoods that is easy to pull off your head and scrunch around your neck fairly comfortably if you want to paddle out with a hood/no hood option. I wore it under my really old hoodless 4/3 the last couple of winters and that setup with gloves and booties kept me pretty warm through Dec and after Feb. (I also got a 6/5/4 hyperflex for cold days in Jan/Feb.) I am also wearing the hooded vest under my new 3/2 now cause sometimes this time of year the wind and air temp make my earsies cold sitting in the lineup, and the hood works great for that.
I busted out the 4/3 last week, when that cold front pushed through. Boots and gloves too, which was the first for all 3 this year. As far as bringing the 3/2 back out in the Spring, its usually not until May, and sometimes not until the middle or later in May, as the ocean takes a while to heat back up. April is usually still balls cold.