Small waves vs. Big Waves

any wave is a good wave

anything above waist on the east coast can be a fun day... chop, slabs, even some baby peelers, but conditions overall are still everything. ex: last night it was about thigh high with offshore winds and i took my lil fish out. my buddy, who logs, and i had a ball, along with some other loggers, on thigh to waist high peelers... nothing special but it was top turns and long rides the whole sunset. days when it gets to over head are a blast too. on the east coast we aren't too blessed, but we're lucky enough to have a hurricane season and a few good spring ground swells. depending on how good you shred, you can make a good day out of anything...shaka

 

Ditto, as I get older. The only time I take less chances is when the water is 39°F. I'll avoid a good thrashing those days whenever I can. And the most fun is when you score it without the crowd.

 

Waves are like breasts—shape is much more important to my taste than size.

 

With experience comes confidence Zman. Its been a long time since I can remember having the east coast jitters. 2003. Hurricane Fabian. Askins creek (that was a long time ago) Hatteras. The hurricane passed slow and right off the coast. The 3/4 mile out sand bars were going off...every sandbar closer to shore was FAST almost dumpy and freaking large... pushing DOH on the sets. I believe someone drowned that day. Gnarly. My board snaped. Followed by a Loooonnng hold down. I think I almost made it 2 drownings that day. Going out the second session was tough but I knew I had to and with the tide, waves were less death at the lighthouse and a memorable session went down... Trust your instincts. Your doing just fine. If you don't get the occasional injury your not pushing it and progressing. We all get injuries just look at the surf injury thread... speaking of going over the falls check this one from last year landed on my fin......

 

Great memories, thanks for sharing! My first hurricane swell was Fabian. I couldn't really even surf yet, but I paddled out with some buddies in OC MD and got royally thrashed. I really love the big days. DOH+ scares me, but I did it so often in Hawaii that I learned it's ALWAYS worth it. That feeling after a bigger wave day, even if you didn't surf well...there aren't too many other things on Earth that compare.

 

Floyd! Another good one! Was that '99? Buckroe beach....Stand up barrels in the Chesapeake bay! Crap or was that '98 Danielle? I'm getting too old....

 

since we're reminiscing about past hurricanes, does anyone remember hurricane bob back in '91? that was my first real hurricane swell. i was 10 & got my ass kicked. good memories of surfing w/ my dad...

 

i like a medium size wall to carve up.most waves that iv seen in jersey are all hollow barrels with a thick lip,from 3ft to 6ft,which is all my beach can handle.iv surfed down south near lbi and barnegat and they have a nice mushy takeoff most of the time.some days tho u cant even pull off a successful ride,taking off on a 2 ft barrel or should i say closeout.iv wiped out in all different sizes and i look at it like when u get sucked over the falls and spin around underwater and crash into the sand,thats the worse its going to be.its not like a reef break where u can lose half your face.once you have accepted your holdowns as the worst that can happen,you stop being afraid.the biggest day iv surfed on the east coast was hurricane bill in 09,i believe it was a sunday and i scored from 6 to 9 am.the waves were breaking a half mile out.i was hoping to run into the new smyrna boys like alek and cory but they were on the jenks side,which i found out looking at surfer mag a month later...
jersey is no california,but when we get a nice low pressure or a nice groundswell and its clean offshore,theres nowhere else id rather be.

 

overhead long period dumpy beach break gets less fun as you age. 4 rilz!

 

i like your quote there,if your not getting injured your not pushing it..a few years ago,we were surfing central area(i dont name beaches)and my buddy went to smack the lip,and as soon as he hit the lip,the board split and hit him right in the stomach.for 6 months after that he was complaining about stomach pains so he finally went to the hospital and they said he got a hernia,and had to have surgery.i didnt know u can get a hernia like that,but he did.the guy charged tho,he'll paddle out when its 8 ft,onshore and closing out without a leash,snap my damn board and swim in.this is someone who doesnt even know theres a pro surfing tour or who kelly slater is,he only surfs because he likes to tag along with me,and if he wanted to he could definitly make something out of his life surfing.

 

Biggest waves for me was Hurricane Bill. Over crowded Local New Jersey Inlet had so many pros out and the waves were intense you could hear them breaking blocks from the beach, I knew i was never going to forget that session when i paddled past Andy Irons after making it through DOH+ sets. It is just a shame NJ cant really handle anything bigger and it gets sketchy after anything larger than 2-3ft over head.

Definitely felt my heart in my throat that day, went a little shallow on a duck dive and got nailed by a lip of 12footer and it ripped the zipper down on my suit and filled me with water. Not a situation you want when you have arm fulls of water trying to make it through a set.

Had to come in and sit a few sets out and catch my breath but pushed myself to get back out and I caught a hand full of waves that I can still remember perfectly years later.

Really concentrating on foot placement helps me once it starts getting big. You have to be conscious of where you fins are and it helps to get you through drops. Over the years of working on it, I've noticed myself trying to take off deeper and deeper. Now I just love waiting to till the last second on hollow sets consequences be damned

 

as an east coast surfer im just happy when there's a good swell. i make some adjustments to size based on seasons. the colder it gets i wait for good conditionsand i surf more conservatively. as it gets warmer i'll go out in slop and have a blast, and take more chances on a wave. I get more selective in my wave choices as it gets better in size and that is related to cold too. when its big and cold and im in a five mil with boots and gloves im much more selective then in fall.

 

that was a crazy day! i snuck out of the house to surf it with a buddy. the storm was right on top of us. IT was such a good time but really dumb. we had no business out there.

how about the whole summer fall of 95? to me that was the best it has ever been.

 

Several weeks after the Bill swell, I ran into a friend...

Him: "Hey, man! I got this excellent photo of you... I'm gonna send it to you as a Christmas card!"
Me: "Yea?! What is it?"
Him: "It's a picture of YOU, on a set wave during the biggest day of the Bill swell... dropping in on ME!"

Doh!

 

Man, SIS...Your stream of thought writing gets me every post. I kinda imagine you sitting in the back of a smoky bar hunched over a beer and an empty bowl of peanuts talking about how things used to be. Good content in your posts with an unusual delivery.

The best hurricane for me that I could fully take advantage of was Bill. I had multiple sessions/day and got to experiment with the whole quiver. This was the first time I've seen "corduroy" on the east coast. We didn't have to travel to get quality waves. I had a friend leave the Charleston area to go to the OBs and he regretted it after breaking a board and a leash after seeing how good we got it here.

 

I lived in Nags Head that summer. I'll never forget that morning. Best barrels of my life. Almost got fired when I finally showed up for work except 2 of the people that would have done the deed were still out surfing.

I've surfed bigger waves over the years but definitely not better.

 

Irene was pretty awesome. True that on Bill, he was a badass too. Getting pumped for Cane' season. We have had decent surf all summer after a relatively tame winter.

Waist high to a little overhead and good form are my favorite. Basically anything medium/long period and clean. Those are the swells that let me catch a lot of waves and avoid getting slammed. Big days are fun as hell, I just prefer smaller because big waves = a lower wave count due to selectivity, closeouts, and the fatigue factor with all that water moving out there.

I used to get out to Hawaii each winter and Costa Rica each summer and got to ride biggins out there. Good prep for big days during hurricane season, and a damn good time.