http://wtop.com/?nid=598&sid=2044360 Now it costs money to catch hurricane swells...lol, the over-reaction to Earl led to the complete shutdown of almost every beach on Friday here in the mid-atlantic...thank god summer is over...no more of this bs....
why 2 citations? that seems rather bizarre to me...not to mention the fact that it's complete bs that he was fined at all. i'm really glad that the ocnj beach patrol exercised some common sense during the earl swell & only closed the beaches to swimmers. they had guards on the beaches talking to the surfers that came down, trying to convince them not to go out & that if they did, they'd be on their own. a much better course of action, i think.
I would guess that it was because of the holiday weekend that they decided to completely shut water access down in OCMD. You gotta figure that if they let a capable surfer out, then a guy with a body board would walk onto the beach they would say "no swimming" he would say "I'm a body boarder" then they would say "ok go ahead". Then a group of kids would come down with body boards and would say we are body boarders, then the beach Patrol would have had to argue that they had no fins and it would be a big hassle for everybody. I strongly believe it should always be "At your own risk" but on a weekend like this without a huge blow beforehand clearing out the rabble there would have been big problems letting anyone in the water during guarded hours. I swear it didn't even look doable down here until after 6 IMO, and they opened the guarded beaches after 5:30 anyhow, which is the normal time.
I'm thinking you may confused as to why they close beaches. After multiple Earl-related deaths in NJ, a civil court case against a municipality on behalf of a drowned grom would pretty much be a slam dunk and cost millions. Once an attorney established that the municipality (or state) had reasonable cause (i.e several previous deaths) to shut down the beaches and didn't, it would be identified as negligence and most-likely award the family with huge settlement. Back in the day, if you were stupid or unlucky, that was your burden to bare. Nowadays, it's everybody elses. Too many examples to use....
yeah, it was pretty blown out anyway at the time that they issued the citation, and you do have a point, after last week's drowning and disappearance of a man in OCMD, the Mayor shut down the beaches....it did get real nice friday night and I didn't have any problems
SO TRUE. Common sense isn't that common any more. Just sit back and laugh, the rest of the world is. RIP swimmers.
Riding Giants Everyone here see Riding Giants? One of my favorite lines is where Greg Noll talks about the early North Shore days. Something like, "If you f@#$ed up, you were on your own." The reality is that it's like that anyway. 50 other pro's and the Pipe guards couldn't do anything for Malik Joyeux, Moto Watanabe, or Joaquin Velilla. These guys were all the definition of LEGIT, and the ocean just took them. It happens. It's the risk we all take to some extent. Some to a greater degree than others, of course. It's part of the surfing experience unfortunately, and pisses the s@#$ out of me that our weak nanny state refuses to allow people to take responsibility for themselves.
Additionally... ...I also wanted to add that, barring freak accidents that DO happen from time to time, anyone with pretty basic surfing experience isn't really in any danger whatsoever on all but the biggest swells, the ones that come by only a few times a decade. If you aren't confident in your abilities, stay on the beach! But don't give me the stupid lifeguard talk about "rip currents and undertow". Some guy tried to tell me this on Saturday morning when I asked him if it would be modified. "No, but don't worry, it's pretty dangerous, we'd rather have everybody out of the water anyway." At which point, I muttered "f@#$ off" under my breath and went home for breakfast. Get the hell out of our town and go back to your college swim team, loser. Hahaha well there's my rant. Now another drink please.
