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.