Making It to Warm Water Again

Many of you have suggested I post something covering what we do to get through the winter's really cold water months. So here it is. But this is mostly about asking you to comment---how do you get through this time of year? Ocean water temp here is down to 45 at the Duck Research Pier now, so this is the time. How are you getting through in between days you surf? Music, indoor soccer, snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding, skimboarding, weightlifting, swimming, music, mountain climbing, cyclocross, pole dancing---what are our surfing brothers and sisters doing in their time between sessions and seasons?

Alright, if you're from up north, a Yankee, I know how you do it. You keep on surfing. Your mutation toward cold water tolerance occurred years maybe even generations ago. Not so all Southerners like myself. Not even my diet of country ham, collards, rockfish, peanut soup, and perfect, sweet iced tea will help me with this problem. But we all manage to somehow make it through to warm water again. But in the meantime...oh the humanity.

If this were the late Sixties, maybe you'd listen to Hendrix and burn blond Lebanese hash or Thai stick till you couldn't see across the room. If it was the Seventies, if you were like me, you were driven headlong away from popular music by Disco, and thankfully into jazz and jazz fusion. Your music world expanded and you waited for wetsuit technology and development to deliver you to the promised land, closer to year-round surfing. The Eighties brought the emergence of cocaine-fueled club nights to some. But the emergence of the thruster fin system was the big news and performance limits were about to fall like dominoes in a gale. But cold water still hurt and blurred vision.

The Nineties brought a new sobriety and awakening to the benefits of fitness directed toward our sport and more performance benefits all in the face of aging. All this could be accomplished during the winter by cross training. For some raising young families tended to fill up lots of winter time. How did you spend your time?

Turn of the century found me taking up road cycling again, but to support my surfing fitness during the 3/4 of the year or so I do surf here. So tell us. What really gets you through between swells or between seasons.

Yeah, and you readers in California can stop the voyeurism and come out with something here too. Maybe you don't have this problem, you know, waiting for the seasons to change and all. I dunno. But I'll bet you have things you like to do between swells or seasons and we'd love you to tell us about it. My friends on the West Coast tell me they can surf virtually year round which I think is cool. So how do you cope? Video games? Naw, come on.

Toys

Alright, my Socal buddy, Jack Hudkins, has done it again! He's tossed me another jewel. Check out this video y'all! I could hardly believe my eyes. Maybe this is me surfing at age eighty. Look at this. Are we gonna have to compete with this too in the lineup?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ONutgLuV8

Happy Trails...

How Mercurial Our Sport: Surfing---It's Only About the Ride

Okay here's where thoughts take me on a winter day like today. I'll blame it on the weather. Thirty-five degree air, wind's onshore, ocean temperature is 48 degrees at Duck Research Pier. While writing this: sun, gray, rain, snow, gray, sun to the north, gray to the south. A low carrying warm moist Gulf air has just rubbed against a high with dry frigid air from the Great Lakes over our beloved coast to give us this weather kaleidoscope, a classic winter setup. We may get a sweet northeast kickback swell off this stuff as the low moves offshore. But that depends on the wind left behind and the tide and of course, where and when you choose to check the waves, the sandbars.

From the first day I was thrilled out of my skin by riding my first wave in 1963, I began the desperate journey to re-capture that feeling. Many who have felt this physical, emotional, even spiritual lift, understand how profound it is and how deeply it touches us. But just as profound, it is equally mercurial and fleeting. In the end though, we sometimes forget it is only about the Ride and how it makes you feel. It's not about contests, it's not about fitness, it's not about sponsors, it's not about stickers and clothes telling the world you're a surfer, it's not about how you think it makes you look, or the vehicle you drive. All this other stuff comes along on its own to some degree for each of us. It is the Ride and the Ride only which has a person remain devoted to the sport for a lifetime.

We soon awaken to how many conditions must come together to produce really good surf: swell generated from some form of low pressure system all the way to the extreme of this, a hurricane, wind direction and speed(to carve the wave into a ridable shape), tide (which influences the wave steepness and projection by the amount of water over the reflecting earth surface, i.e. sandbar, rock, reef at any time), and the aforementioned bottom conditions. We also soon learn that those optimum conditions, when they come together to create what only they can, wait for no one. There are no "tee times" or "kickoff" in surfing. Conditions are even changing while you are standing there checking them. And herein lies the mind-numbing predicament of the non-competitive lifestyle surfer who must balance making a living with his pursuit of the best conditions.

This is my story and I am astounded at how much it is the story of many, many people in our coastal community not unlike any coastal towns where there are worthy waves to ride anywhere in the world.

When my family moved to Hawaii in 1971, I remember seeing classic Hawaiian guns (spear-shaped boards around 8' long) standing ready in the greasy, oily corners of gas stations in downtown Honolulu. These boards had old,used wax on their decks. They weren't there to impress others their owners belonged to a hip cultural group. They were waiting for the next summer south swell. I recall admiring the substance this represented. It was real and genuine.

Our community is broadly threaded with surfers who represent virtually any socio-economic level and any job or career. I personally know carpenters, contractors, tradespeople, building inspectors, politicians, doctors, teachers, school administrators, dentists, nurses, restaurateurs, waits, fishermen, scientists, town planners and local government employees, attorneys, accountants, mortgage brokers, bankers, realtors, appraisers, financial managers, firemen, bohemians, vagabonds, new age hippies and ex-convicts who surf. This is interesting to me because the group noted above possess diverse demands and agenda they must reconcile in order to pursue good surf. Of course there's ridable surf and there's epic surf (see the Thanksgiving Swell posts, November, 2007 for epic surf) with epic conditions wielding the most influence over everyone's schedule of non-surfing obligations.

Epic conditions turn this group inside out mentally and emotionally. Just check 'em out when you know there's a good swell. I'm sure there's a surfer working with you or nearby. If you don't surf, I'm sure this is quite entertaining to witness from the outside. To see them as people fighting a distraction doesn't begin to describe it.

Veteran wave riders are most creative about feeding their addiction though. For instance, by the time you start torturing them by bringing up the subject, they probably have already been in the water for a before-work session. Then there's the "liquid lunch" session and after work session. For the politicians and foundation members in the crowd, having to attend a "board meeting" is often induced as the best way to give cover to their discrete mission. Some travel the world to distant waves as a means to remedy their yearnings.

But the work still gets done, the obligations still met and by a joyful group, especially during or after an excellent swell. The best at maintaining the balance demanded between surfing and work and even family, remain here with their world mostly intact. Those less discrete or committed to their other obligations struggle more.

Even you non-surfing Outer Banks readers, I'm sure can recognize the difference between flat spells of no surf, and the happiness around you when "it" gets really good. You know don't you?

You see, in many ways our community beats to the pulse of the ocean. This is, after all, why we came here in the first place. We will not and cannot forget this. Many of those who helped build our community and continue to contribute to it, I'm proud to say, move with this pulse and so do our children. But it's still only about the Ride.

Wetsuits Finale

Hot and just in from my good friend and surf photog extraordinaire, Jack Hudkins, in SoCal: heated wetsuits! Yeah, that's what I said and thought to myself, "Why didn't I think they already existed?"

Jack tells me there's an Australian company that's developed a heated wetsuit, actually a waist-type belt which is worn under any wetsuit. It provides warmth for up to one hour using some kind of chemical, or up to two hours using a waterproof battery pack. This for the fully accessorized waterman (or woman) who demands womb-like comfort in frigid conditions. Check it out at http://www.hotsuits.com.au/.

Has anyone out there tried one of these? I'd love to hear from you. As I said in an earlier post, wetsuit technology just keeps rolling along. I guess we have more money than we used to have in the earlier days of our sport, huh?

Oh yeah, check out Jack's website at http://asurfmoment.com for some fine surf photography. His work is also found in the latest edition of Surfer Magazine. Enjoy.

Alright, keep at it.

The Ebb and Flow of My Town---Its Pulse

Does your hometown have a pulse? No that's not what I mean. I mean a noticeable movement of life throbbing within it. Mine does. Although I didn't know it when I moved here in 1975. It has a sort of ebb and flow of people too, mostly out-of-towners. "Visitors" is the polite term, at least that's what our "Visitors Bureau" would call them.

When I arrived here out of college, flat broke, I had no idea what I was in for during the "off" season. The locals knew and they knew I didn't. They were entertained.

I worked through that first summer at Spencer's Seafood Safari Restaurant. It wasn't really a safari but served decent broiled and fried seafood. I could surf all day, wait tables at night, and go home with a cold Lowenbrau and 40 bucks. It was all I needed at the time, along with superb, uncrowded surf in clean water and air. I had seen California and Hawaii. The only thing I was sure of, was this place on this coast suited me just fine.

The first evidence of ebb was the very day after Labor Day. The hundreds of visitors visiting abruptly left. Everyone. No cars anywhere in sight. Beaches and piers were virtually empty. We walked from Sam and Omie's over to the By-Pass (a two-lane blacktop with no traffic lights). We looked south toward Hatteras: nothing. We looked north toward Jockey's Ridge: nothing. Gone. We laid a towel on the road surface and spread out on it for more than a few minutes. Nothing. Bored, we picked up our towel and left. Now that's ebb if I ever saw it.

Likewise, when Easter and then Memorial Day arrived, they (the visitors)would suddenly return and quickly disappear afterwards, a kind of teaser to the coming summer. Then when schools elsewhere closed for the year, about mid-June, the visitors would suddenly appear en mass again...the aforementioned flow. Year upon year repeated this pattern. Each year it grew more intense.

Over the ensuing years I noticed how during the summer I wouldn't very often see the friends I hung with during the winter trying to stay entertained (more on staying entertained in future posts). Many were working in the restaurants and hotels. During the winter, I wouldn't always see the friends I worked with during the summer. Many of them had left too, like the "visitors". I guess we could've called them visiting workers.

And so the pulse of our coastal town continued. It's still similar today. Except the part about no traffic on the By-Pass the day after Labor Day. There's plenty of that. Back then there were less than 10 thousand people living in Dare County. Now there are about 32 thousand of us spread over about 90 miles north to south, most with large bodies of water on both sides. It's much easier to stay entertained during the winter too and you can see your friends almost any time at meetings covering the issues of the day (there are plenty cause there are so many of us now), and even at school events and activities or in stores cause there are lots of them now too. And when the tourists...I mean "visitors" return, there's too many of them and us.

It's winter here now. This is the time of year which calls forth reminiscences of the past and the way it once was. The surf's not really uncrowded like it used to be, but the long-time locals seem more tightly connected than ever. It's still a thrill to watch them ride.

Surfer's Ear

Ran into Robbie Snyder at the grocery store today. We both were buying cheap chicken. We were sharing physical ailment stories. Yeah, during winter it gets to this out here. Thirty years ago there was no place to run into each other (except in the water or on the job)let alone buy cheap chicken.

He asked me if I had ever had surfer's ear. You know where you get calcium deposits that build up boney spurs in the ear canal and eventually close it off completely in severe cases. Evidently this is caused when your ears don't drain properly. I told him I have only had swimmer's ear off and on over the years when I surf a lot and don't do such a good job of drying out my ears.

Anyway, he's had a severe case of surfer's ear for many years with his ears getting progressively worse over time. His suffering featured weekly earaches especially when he was in the water a lot. He said he finally decided to turn himself in and let a doctor look at it. He was facing a medieval sounding surgical procedure where they basically put your head in a vice and drill out the deposits built up over the years. Sound medieval enough? Plus it costs about $8 grand. Knowing Robbie, I'm sure he wasn't making this up. Really.

So he was telling his son, Noah, about his plight. Noah mentioned an Australian product called Surfer's Ear. Twenty bucks for a small bottle of liquid you apply to "the affected areas", I guess daily, and it lasts about a month and a half. So Robbie looked it up on the internet, ordered himself a bottle and...voila, surfer's ear gone. For you sufferers out there---just thought you might want to know.

Friends and Wetsuits (Again)

Was on the way home from looking at an ongoing oceanfront remodel the other day and spotted some friends, Marcus and Gail Felton, who live on the west side of the beach road in Kitty Hawk. My son and theirs have grown up together surfing and playing school and club sports, baseball and soccer. Their house is like an oceanfront home as there are no oceanfront homes across the street, just man-made dunes and beach. The homes that used to be there have long since been taken by beach erosion.

Marcus and I walked across the street to watch his sons and a few other local teenaged boys surf some small glassy waves breaking close to the beach. A little while later Pete Hunter dropped by and then Shawn Mulligan. So we had a regular jawing session going there, standing on the little wood walkway which reached over the crest of the dune. The boys were taking near shorebreak waves in full wetsuits replete with boots, gloves, and hoods as the water was around 50 degrees that day.

This was the first time I can remember meeting Shawn as an adult. I had met his wife once years before at the eighth grade graduation of our daughter and his son. I had even met his son, who used to be close to Molly at the time and through their high school years. Shawn and his family used to live behind our house in Virginia Beach where we grew up in the 1960's. His father was a naval Commander and aviator who had been shot down, captured, and held for many, many years by the North Vietnamese. In fact, as a child, I don't ever remember meeting his father. It seemed like he was never there.

We even used to play sandlot football and baseball behind their house during those years---all the neighborhood kids. We'd call everybody together, lay out bases or a football field and play till dark. My day would end when my father would step out the rear garage door and whistle for my brother and I, our signal to come home. We liked that our Dad's piercing whistle, produced somehow by placing two fingers in the side of his mouth just so, actually made us feel special and unique. No one was called home this way. So we would honor it and him with our obedience.

This neighborhood was near a number of naval air stations and was mostly inhabited by naval aviators although our father was a ship captain. We learned the harsh realities of war as military families when our friends' fathers didn't return. We played as a close knit group, but when something like this happens and as kids age, groups drift apart and form new identities and new ways of supporting each other without announcing to the world that that is what you are doing. Such was my departure from Shawn Mulligan's life I suppose. We never lost track of his father's situation though and were so happy the day in the early 1970's when Commander Mulligan, along with many other downed aviators, was returned to the United States. By then, I was in college.

So there we were, standing on this little walkway before the Atlantic, talking about our kids, where they were in college and stuff like that. Water temperature is always a topic of conversation at this time of year.

Pete mentioned he just got a new, Patagonia full wetsuit, a 2 mil with a wool lining. I said I'd love to see it as he had it with him. The four of us crossed the street back over to Marcus' where Pete's white pickup was parked. He pulled it out of the back of the truck and we all handled and inspected it---a wetsuit with a Merino wool lining. It's cost? It was four hundred eighty dollars with a lifetime replacement warranty. His son, who has one, said very little water even gets into it when other suits usually get flushed out, especially paddling out through bigger waves. "But a Merino wool lining?", I said. On closer inspection, the wool fibers were formed in neat rows of looped, bunched strands all attached at both ends to the neoprene on the inside. There went my "itchy wool" objection. It felt smooth and soft. He said the 2 mil (thickness) of the suit would do in water demanding a thicker conventional suit because of the wool. Pete had not tried his suit at this time. I'll check back in with you later for his feedback.

I have a three year-old O'Neill Psycho 3-2 mil full suit I bought used from Noah Snyder, which I love. But any way you can reduce the weight and the binding effect of a neoprene second skin during cold water months (see blog entry "The After Swell Hangover, The Winter Cometh, December 8, 2007, ), everything changes from stamina to board choice. The material advances in wetsuit technology during my surfing lifetime are astounding. It's a safe bet my son will be just as amazed at this stuff when he's my age, that is of course, if our oceans are clean enough for human activity. I sure hope so.