The Hurricane Kyle Followup

The surf was pretty big here this morning---up to 4 feet overhead on the morning sets, smaller as the tide went out and the day wore on. High tide was 7-something, the wind light offshore (west-northwest). We looked at it in Kill Devil Hills, then went up the Beach Road to Kitty Hawk. We entered through a huge shorebreak around 10:45 a.m.

Some of you may have read a previous post featuring my whining about the poor condition of our local sandbars. Swells have shown over them this Summer and early Fall, but nowhere seems to break like it used to.

Richard and I stood in a group of long time local elders at 9:15 a.m. as we all came to unanimous agreement on this subject. We also concluded that today's surf was too big to make a swift judgment on the present condition of our sandbars since last week's northeaster---too soon for that. We laughed at two other of our kind hesitating to make the sprint through the shorebreak south of us down the beach. Today it was breaking 3 bars outside. We would need evidence of waves breaking on say, the first or second bar to really know if our sandbars were back again. This is where we usually surf our typical head to 2 feet overhead Fall waves. We'll get to that sometime soon I'm sure. You see, this is the local marine geology learning cauldron. This is where real learning takes place.

However being an East Coast surfer, you learned, like no other surfers on the planet how to be wrong in your predictions and projections about what It will be like tomorrow or the next day after. Shifting sandbars and unpredictable storm tracks, speeds, and intensities help us here too. So....

Today, contrary to my predictions in yesterday's post, we surfed a very large, deep sucking out ground swell with an acute north angle. We paddled out, just the two of us, and surfed glassy conditions on a pitching, huge bowl beside a developing riptide, alone for about an hour. So much for my prediction that the Kyle swell wouldn't reach us till tomorrow or tomorrow night. What do Right Coast surfers know anyhow, huh?

Hurricane Kyle: How a Hurricane Can Pass You with No Wake (Swell)

Just back from visiting my son at the Barton College Parents' Weekend. Had a good visit, but we all were worried the wind would switch west to line up a meaty northeast windswell created by a 4-day northeaster last week. It's not a good thing to be landlocked 3 hours inland when great surf is born. However early morning calls to local allies told us the wind was still onshore and the waves were "humpy, bumpy, and lumpy". So we could relax and enjoy our day. We may get our offshore conditions tomorrow.

But the real reason I felt compelled to post tonight is the astounding speed Hurricane (almost tropical storm) Kyle is passing our coast apparently with Maine in it's crosshairs. Watching these storms for a lifetime has taught me when they move fast like this one---24 miles per hour---they leave virtually no swell on the adjacent coasts. Hurricane Bell did this in 1976 coming up under the hook of Cape Hatteras and then abruptly pinging to the northeast and then almost straight north at about 16 miles per hour. It was a fairly powerful storm with 110 mph winds wrapped around it's eye. It left behind a strong, double overhead swell crashing our sandbars for a mere few hours. Then just as suddenly, no swell at all.

But Kyle at 24 mph and even on our side of Bermuda? At this time it is a low- rent storm with winds a measly 75+ mph. When a Hurricane moves this swiftly as well, it tows its resulting swell like a fast moving boat wake, not spreading out until the storm is long past. We might not see any surf here from Kyle until late Monday or later when it crashes into New England or Maine. I'll be watching this closely and let you know what happens here at the home breaks.

In the meantime, we should have some fun waves here tomorrow when the wind switches. I'll let you know.

Just What Our Sandbars Need

Today it blew 30 to 40 knots and is still blowing very hard with gusts up to 50 knots here on the coast. We're caught between two pressure gradients---a classic setup---a high pressure system bringing in cooler air (low 70's day, mid to high 60's night)from the northwest and a low to the southeast both spinning against one another and firing up the present northeaster. Rain should develop into the recipe tomorrow sometime.

There's a considerable size overhead northeast swell that should have no problem whatsoever re-shuffling and re-shaping our town sandbars. They were in such dire need of re-work as none of the classic local bars have been working lately.

The towns, knowing this was about to happen, scrambled to dump and push sand up into the east ends of the beach access parking areas. Many of these are no more than a strip of blacktop extending perpendicular from the Beach Road to the dune line, usually around 100 yards long, and providing parallel parking along both their edges and a way in and out in the center.

I drove my loaded and then empty cargo van across the sound on the Currituck Orville Wright Bridge today and was radically rocked by this northeaster, the van shuddering and bucking the big gusts all the way back to the island.

Will keep you posted on the quality of our sandbars following this latest wind event. Here's to the ever changing Outer Banks land and marine-scapes.

Surf Update and Lance Conjecture

There were good waves in Rodanthe yesterday. Richard called early in the morning to say he was headed down to Hatteras Island. I chose work for the day. He called around 4 p.m. as I was coming home on the Beach Road. He said it was worth the trip down there as he'd had a good 3-hour session. Said it was ledgie and head high with a lot of barrels to be had. Did I already say I chose work?

On Lance coming back I guess first of all, everybody thinks it's a natural that He would rejoin Johan Bruyneel and the Astana team. I thought the same until pondering the whole thing once again driving home from work today. I see Armstrong as extremely calculating about every move he makes. I've read about his scales and the weighing of all food portions he ate in the off-seasons while he was still harvesting Tours. I can't imagine him announcing his return to the world cycling stage without having already clenched a place to compete.

One of the team bosses who are quoted in Velo News today on Armstrong's return to pro road racing, is playing possum, and I believe already knows Armstrong will be joining his team.

I believe Bob Stapleton's Team Columbia is just as likely a place for Lance to land, maybe even more so, than Team Astana. There he could race once again with his long- time accomplice, George Hincapie. With Bruyneel's new book out this summer recounting how he had a very large part in Armstrong's Tour successes, I don't think anything could be more satisfying to Armstrong than to win a comeback tour "on his own" at 37 years-old without Bruyneel, but with Hincapie on an American team, with transparent proof of his having raced "clean". With these odds, Lance has found a new L'Alpe d'Huez summit finish, a new mountain to climb.

I see Armstrong creating turmoil inside an Astana team boasting two G.C. men in Contador and Liepheimer, whereas Team Columbia's Kim Kirchen, although a strong classics rider, is not the stellar G.C. contender that this team could put on the podium in Paris. Lance would more than fit the bill.

Maybe Bob Stapleton knows more than he would have us think.

Lance Armstrong Planning a Comeback

Lance Armstrong, now 37 years old, is planning to make a professional road racing comeback according to sources quoted by Velo News and Cycling News. They're talking about Lance signing with Team Astana to reunite with team director Johan Bruyneel and former Team Discovery director Dirk Demol, who has just signed on with Astana for the 2009 road season. Lance reportedly will race for no salary or bonuses.

Apparently rumors were flying wildly at the Eurobike trade show this summer. Neal Rogers of Velo News reports that Vanity Fair will feature an exclusive article in its next issue laying out the details of the coming road racing season and Lance's comeback.

Races Armstrong is said to be participating in are, Paris-Nice, the Dauphine Libere, the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour of Georgia, and the Tour De France.

If this turns out to be true, what a year it will be in professional cycling. I believe the domestic cycling ranks will be transfixed by this all season. I also see this as good for amateur cycling in the U.S. True champions, like Armstrong, are too often never able to see that they might not be champions still. The thought of his attempted comeback may inspire nonetheless. The cauldron he is about to enter, I think, will surely be more competitive now, maybe none more than the Astana team he is reportedly about to join featuring Levi Liepheimer and Alberto Contador both holding the one and two positions in the Vuelta a Espana respectively as of yesterday.

George Hincapie (Team Columbia) says he knows nothing about the Lance comeback. If he doesn't know now, he will know soon for sure. Keep your eyes and ears on him. He is one of Lance's closest friends and former teammates. Should be interesting if true in the 2009 road season.

Tropical Storm Hanna

Tropical Storm Hanna passed behind us early this morning to the west about 70 miles. It was in a rush moving 22 mph. I'm sure the coastal plain region of North Carolina got drowned by rain. Tropical storms carry so much rain, as if they are a moving funnel spilling all the rain in the heavens over the earth.

The rain cleared out here about mid morning leaving behind only pulsing southerly gusts up to around 50+ miles per hour. I scouted the oceanfront at First Street and watched as the south wind scoured the beaches. The south current along the beach was weaker than I expected. The swell had a pronounced south angle and was only about what looked like a little overhead outside.

Surf tomorrow? The wind will dictate it all. One forecast I saw earlier has a light onshore wind tomorrow, slowly building as the day stretches into the afternoon. We'll see.

Return to Hatteras Island

Yesterday Robbie Snyder said it best: "this is like a surf trip out of country where, instead, you never have to get on a plane, and the surf is as good as anywhere you've ever been." It was this way again today. This is the Outer Banks in the Fall.

Today we returned to Hatteras Island with the feel of confidence that it would be a repeat of yesterday. The buoys were actually reading around a 1-1/2' larger swell than yesterday. The wind was predicted to remain light and variable westerly.

At first light my internal conflict between work obligations and the draw of rare excellent surf began. I even emailed a close out-of-town friend that I couldn't surf today because I needed to get some things done at work. But my accomplice, Richard called, told me where he was headed and that he'd meet me there, etc. What the heck...this is the very reason I've sacrificed so much to live here. This moment defines it all.

I picked up wax for us both at Stop-and-Shop, checked our hometown break for comparison, and took off south. I once again passed the S-Turns Barnum and Bailey show for the cameras and stopped at a well-known locals break for a check. There were two peaks. A vortex of surfers were knotted up on the primary sandbar. The secondary bar was covered by a sprinkling of riders to the north. The numbers looked bad. I saddled up and headed to the spot we surfed yesterday.

When I came over the dune a ground swell set was pushing through. The sun's glint off the wave faces looked worthy of any surf mag. Yeah, the glamor shot in the unglamorous spot under the radar. I prefer it like that.

The swell direction was now north and opened-ended lefts were everywhere I looked---a goofyfooter's heaven. It would be a good day for me.

Surfers were scattered across peaks spread some 600 yards along the beach. Again I had friends from town in the water, always a welcome sight here, some 30 miles south. Again the surf was around the same size as yesterday with ground swell sets and open lefts. Robbie and I rode a left bowl snapping over a bar with a rip starting up on its south end. If you were caught inside on a set today, the best call was to go to the beach and walk around to the rip and paddle back out from there.

It was a great morning for us. I had ten quality waves in 120 minutes. On most takeoffs it was tail-and-rail only in contact with the wave face. Bait fish were all around. A stingray leaped 6 feet out of the water only 25 feet away from another guy and I. The aloha spirit and many smiles were with all.

When we left the water we knew it would be a while before we would see these conditions again. The forecast for tomorrow is for increasing cloudiness, increasing onshore wind, and plenty of rain as Tropical Storm (now) Hanna moves up and inland behind us (to the west). There will be more good surf fairly soon I'm sure. Will check back later.

The Fall Swell is Upon Us

Today we left town for Hatteras Island fairly early, around 7 a.m., expecting very good surf. We weren't disappointed. Driving past the S-Turns circus, we searched for the lesser known breaks known amongst locals both north and south of Oregon Inlet.

The tide was nearly topped off high, the wind was 10-12 mph from the west-southwest, and the seawater temperature was about 80 degrees. We found a good sandbar and noticed the south current was running hard between the wash and the first sandbar, about 5+ knots. A friend pointed south to an area cordoned off by the National Park Service to protect endangered turtle eggs and endangered shore bird eggs and chicks as the place to paddle out---about 350 yards south of the place we wanted to be when we finally reached the peak outside.

The surf was consistently chest to head high. But there were deep very impressive, south ground swell sets coming through around 2+ feet overhead every 25 minutes or so. All the tropics are boiling now with 3 named storms all lined up: Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Ike, and Tropical Storm Josephine. I make the connection to them for the long 25 minute period between these ground swell sets.

This morning we surfed for 2-1/2 hours with friends we've seen year-in and year-out for the last twenty-five, every time there's surf. They are as much a part of the context we are in here as the island landscape or seeing rideable waves lit by the sun's Fall angle.

We return to these breaks tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes.