My Sometimes Shy, Wet Love

I awoke today to see another gray, black and white, wet world. Early morning rain eclipsed yet another weekend bike ride. So I ate and took my dog to the beach for a walk (for me) and a romp (for him). We went to First Street in Kill Devil Hills.

As I got out of my truck and let Kona go, I looked beyond him at her. She laid there waiting for me as always. Today though, she was shy, demur, and about as gray as the low cloud ceiling pressing down over our heads. The fog from earlier was lifting out now. No swell showed but a small shorebreak rattled into the thick, heavy sand my feet seemed to push deep into with each step. This was the Atlantic's quiet almost depressed manner as counterpoint to the many times she rages or glimmers with full swell and wild whitewater. How moody this massive personality. Few seem to desire her company when she's in this mood. I remain loyal still to this lifelong love no matter.

I turned southward away from a light north-northeast wind and spotted something drifting about 200 yards off the beach. I stared at it through the tiny rain droplets spattering on my glasses' lenses. It appeared a head rolled over from the dark form floating along in the small swell. I looked back at the condo balconies behind me. A group peered out and pointed to the dark shape as I was, transfixed.

Funny how your mind takes off when you catch sight of something unidentifiable floating in the ocean. Was it a survivor from some lost vessel? Was it a bale of "da kine"? Many have been found on this coast in years past when trawl boats feared the law was closing in on them and their whole illegal cargo would be jettisoned at sea. In fact one local business was seeded with dollars from such a find years ago, or so it's said among those of us who were here in 1976.

So we watched our mysterious floating flotsam. We each wrote our own tale of ocean mishap. As I trudged southward I noticed I was walking about the same speed it drifted, and that it was slowly edging closer to the beach. The farther I walked, the closer it moved until finally I could make out about a dozen round shapes seemingly bound together in drift. Another head turned. I strained my eyes. I felt for my cell phone.

When it reached the shorebreak lineup I could identify it. It was about 12 black and white balloons...yeah balloons. Just what sea life need huh? My dog loved it though. As the next waves lifted and then dumped them in the wash, he lunged at them repeatedly and was quite vocal. They broke apart mostly coming ashore and scattering low across the sand. So we chased them down and captured as many as we could. I popped them. We turned back toward our beach access triumphant with our trashed trophy. No throngs, no sun, no swell, cold water, yet a fine morning nonetheless.

The Surf Last Week

Hey everyone. On my last post we were anticipating decent waves thrown back by yet another front moving offshore. We did get very good waves with the attendant 45 degree water. Thought Thursday morning was gonna be the time, but the front moved through swiftly leaving a sizable overhead wave slanting to the beach with an acute south angle. Yeah open rights. The wind switch to the northwest happened late Wednesday a.m. instead of the predicted Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Everybody was scrambling around their work schedules to get some of it.

We were working on an oceanfront remodel and witnessed the moment the wind switch performed it's magical transformation as we worked on to great distraction. The work got done. Some of our kind got some I am assured. There will be another swell. The fronts keep coming. We still have a while before the sea water begins to warm up again. Patience...

Big Stuff on the Way?

Okay people, take a look at the weather satellites' view over the Eastern seaboard. A massive front is moving off the coast of New England right now. The wind forecast for tomorrow is southeast 25-35 mph, then to the south, and finally flipping over to northwest at 25 by say, late night. Looks like Thursday morning could be prime time for the ground swell and the offshore wind to get right together. We'll see.

When You Know You're an Aged Surfer

There comes a time in every surfer's career, when something signals or reflects back that you are no longer the immortal, eternally youthful, bulletproof, hellbent shredder you might think you still are. This day came for me while surfing the north side of Rodanthe Pier on a growing hurricane swell. Don't ask me which storm. There've been so many. I remember this one because our timing and prediction of the swell's size and the expectation of it getting larger while we were there, was precisely what happened. It doesn't always work out that way so you tend to remember whenever it does.

It was around 1995. The boys were on it. There were even rumors that locals (non-surfers)were slashing people's tires if you were parked in front of their homes. I never saw any of that though.

There were mostly good sized rights with light offshore wind. And as I said before, the swell continued to grow as the day wore on.

I took off on an overhead right kind of behind the peak, made the drop, turned down the line backside and the wave face just collapsed on me. I surfaced, grabbed my board and paddled quickly out of the impact zone. Then I heard someone yelling at another guy and glanced back over my shoulder as I see-sawed over the top of a peak close to breaking. "What are you doin'? Didn't you see that "old guy" you just dropped in on?" What's wrong with you, you freakin' idiot?"

First let me explain, I'm not really a surf combatant. Don't take myself that seriously in the water---never have. That's not why I'm out there. Oh yeah there's another whole blog post or more on surfers who I have been around who evidently do take themselves quite seriously. You've seen 'em huh? You know every session is their heat to win. Yeah, those guys.

Anyway, back to the story...I thought it was real nice of that guy to pull back on his buddy a little, apparently they knew each other. Then a few waves later, it hit me: "that old guy"...Did he mean me? He couldn't have meant me, could he? What I needed was somebody to tell my defender that I wasn't an old guy. Would that have helped?

I posted a blog entitled, "Big Waves, Part 1", December 8, 2007 which mentions contemplating the aging dilemma sitting on the beach at Croatan (Va. Beach) with my best friend. We were seventeen. I knew we wouldn't be able to surf after say, age thirty. I was sure. In fact at that age, I was sure about everything, (I'm sure). Weren't you?

Alright so now I'm 56 and still surfing. And I guess I've been an "old guy" since then, 13 years ago. Man, I've been an old guy a long time. Not like Dr. Dorian Paskowitz or Eve Fletcher, but pretty old I suppose. Are you an old guy yet? If you are already, I'd love to know how you came to your awakening.

But I kinda like my old guy-ness. It's very liberating. I don't have to keep up with fashions anymore (never did much of that anyway). I can keep listening to the same music all the time if that pleases me. I don't have to surf like the day's surf stars. I don't have to prove anything to anybody in the water. And above all, it doesn't take as much for me to get the stoke out of each session in the water. My day is here and now and here's my thanks to the young surfer who knighted me that day on Hatteras Island.

And oh yeah, the swell that day produced big, clean, way long rights with young shredders and a few old guys all over it. It was insane and a good day to remember.

Swell Check

Got a beautiful northeast swell this past Tuesday, January 29th, offering nice open lefts, some rights, all around shoulder high to a foot or more overhead. Checked it in Nags Head at one of my favorite beach accesses in the morning. A low pressure system passed to the northeast along the coast Sunday night and Monday, a raggy but sizable swell appeared, then the wind switched to west and "voila"!

The water was around 42 degrees so everybody was wrapped up tight. The best waves were lefts, open and long. Tim Nolte was killing it with his 10-foot paddle board. I stood on the access boardwalk with a few longtime locals, Dan Corbin, Eric Cleaver, and Edward Tupper. Eric was shooting some video and snapping some photos while his dog stalked the top of the boardwalk railing.

This is the first swell I've seen which resembled the Thanksgiving week swell of 2007, albeit a smaller version. The other differences? Hoods and gloves are out now cause the water temperature is about 14 degrees colder. This day I had to go back to work. I'm also still recovering from recent surgery, so I can't surf anyway, and I don't really care for water that cold. I couldn't think of any more excuses. I decided to turn away and leave my local water brothers to their uncrowded waves. I'll soon have my chance again.