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Eastside Surfblog past entriesRead 04/30/09 entry Useful linksWarp 11, Grady’s new favorite bandVideo of the bigger skate bowl Nosara Wildlife Jupiter Inlet Juno pier IOP pier surf cam Favorite surf forecast site Click here to e-mail the Surfblogger.
(Click the photos to enlarge)
BlogSon1 longboard carving Stuben. (Photo/DK)
The vertical drop at Stuben. (Photo/BlogSon1)
DK (left) and snowboard legend Bob Klein exit the 1983 time machine. (Photo/Blogson1)
| 05/07/09 Gee, I kinda missed my forecast last week. I said that there would be no surf. What I should have said is that there would be no surf if you weren’t willing to paddle around in a southwest gale. Depending on how desperate you are — and I pretty much peg the desperate meter — there is always something to ride when the wind blows like this. But let’s face it, these are really not waves. It’s just a bunch of big and little pieces of chop moving down the beach from right to left in frothy confusion. In other words, typical S.C. surf. And if you don’t know how to — or refuse to — ride it, you pretty much will sit on the sidelines most of the year. I said “sidelines,” not beach, because you can’t really sit on the beach in this stuff. It’s a miserable sandstorm, like something out of Lawrence of Arabia — add humidity and subtract Peter O’Toole. If you refuse to ride it, I salute you. For that means you either have better things to do or that you have access to better places to surf. Having neither, I pretty much have to make the best of it, and staying stoked requires way more imagination than athletic skill. So, if you are desperate for something to ride, like me, here are a few tips: First and foremost, if you see something that looks like a wave, you will miss it if you wait for it too long. Catch that little piece of chop in front of the thing that looks like a wave, which is really a big piece of chop, because the big chop will overtake the little chop before you stand up and you can drop in on the double-up. Second, because it’s a piece of chop you are now riding, cut back the other direction right away, because you will just pop over the shoulder if you go down the line too far. That’s because, basically, there is no line; you’re just standing on a little piece of moving water. Think of it as a frothy, greenish-brown, knee-high miracle. Plus, you are probably impressing the heck out of that wide-eyed family from North Dakota, so just enjoy it and don’t think about the 973 other places on the planet where it’s going off. Or, one man’s trash being another man’s pleasure, you could take up kiteboarding. Those guys love this stuff. They hate it when it’s all glassy and tubing — the bunch of sickos. I was sitting in the lineup on Sunday evening and a big herd of them came down the beach like a swarm of giant, psychedelic bees. A strong SW is perfect for that crew and, as they approached, I saw Steve Wiggs in the lead. He reminded me of the supreme disadvantage of paddling by snaking a nice left that was coming and then blowing past me at warp speed when he was done. And because my mind works like this, check out my new favorite band. They are loud, fast, somewhat obscene and wearing Star Trek uniforms — what could be better? Okay, I’m back. So anyway, Steve rips. If you are thinking about kiteboarding, you can go to Station 27 on Sullivan’s Island on the next big SW and get a look at the mayhem. That’s where most of the crew launches from. Or stop in and talk to Danny Floyd over at Olinah Kite Shop. He can hook you up with advice and all the trimmings. The learning curve is pretty steep, so you need somebody like Danny to keep you from getting dragged through the dunes and embedded in a beach house while you learn to deal with strapping yourself to a giant kite in a gale. And since I’ve taken this fork in the road to talk about kiteboarding, I might as well continue to stray and visit the subject of snowboarding for a moment. On the other side of the big lake, BlogSon1 is busily squandering the family fortune under the guise of a few semesters abroad in Sweden. He’s alleging to procure an engineering degree amidst the Nordic bacchanalia, and Mrs. Blog and I can only hope. It’s hard to think about it, being in S.C., but there is still some rideable snow over there, and one of the season closers is the annual Longboard Classic on the glacier at Stuben, Austria. Our part-time S.C. local and full-time Swabian hillbilly, DK, hooked BlogSon1 into entering the annual longboard race. Besides the gnarly, almost vertical slope, the idea is to ride the longest or oldest equipment you can find. It’s sort of like laughing in the face of a snowy death, or dropping in at Pipeline on a surfboard from the ’60s. One thing is for sure, it’s shifted Mrs. Blog’s focus from BlogSon1 coming home with a degree to BlogSon1 coming home alive. Not sure if DK planned this as a strategic move to relieve BlogSon1 of parental stress, but I’m sure Mrs. Blog will have a few things to say to DK the next time he comes over the big lake for a surf. As for this weekend, it looks to me as though this SW wind will prevail and there should be something to ride for the rest of the week. It’s possible that the swell could get a little more southerly “fetch” on it, which means an increase of size and shape. I have seen this SW stuff get pretty good, so there is a possibility. The wind looks like it will hover just a bit below the small craft advisory level all weekend, so it should be not too horrible for us paddle surfers and just fine for the kite crew. Maybe we can all get a little satisfaction. Oh, by the way, last weekend the beaches were as crowded as I have ever seen them, and at high tide it looked like New Jersey or somewhere. So be kind to your neighbors. |
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