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Eastside Surfblog past entriesRead 07/16/09 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. | 07/23/09 The surf cooperated with the ESA contest last weekend — if you were a grom, that is. The waves never did get very big by adult standards, but if you were younger than 12, it was epic. I spent most of the weekend out at the Washout judging heats, and all in all, it was a pretty fun contest. The mornings served up some small but clean waves and, by late afternoon, the sea breeze turned it into a pretty challenging rip. Congrats go out to Bryant Thomas, who won the grom open and walked away with a brand-new surfboard from McKevlin’s. I think honorable mention also needs to go out to Grace Muckenfuss for being the only girl to make it through all the qualifying open heats and into the final. Watch your backs, boys, she don’t take no prisoners. Observing the young talent on display was pretty inspiring, and I’m always amazed at the skill level we have here. It always makes me wonder — Would we have the same stoke if our surf was consistently better? Or would we just be all jaded and cynical about waves like those heathens in California? I know I’d be a lot more tired and have a third-degree wax rash. The one downside I experienced is the complete traffic gridlock getting onto and off of Folly Island. Doing most of my kibitzing over here on the East side, I normally don’t go to Folly when the masses do. It’s usually a quick dawn patrol and then away. But hewing to the contest schedule put me right in the middle of the mass exodus at the end of the day. Yikes. It makes the traffic over here seem downright benign in comparison. There’s a pretty nice swell running at the moment and, looking at the surf forecast and swell models, it looks as though this is a fast-moving system that will pass off the coast between Thursday and Friday. I’m thinking that an after-work session today (Thursday) or a dawn patrol on Friday could still yield something tasty. I’ve got meetings in both of those slots, so that probably means there’s waves and I’m the surf sacrifice. But my advice to you is to go check it after work and set the alarm for o’dark thirty on Friday and hit it. The swell model looks to be in the small range again for Saturday and Sunday, but the directional arrows all line up from a long way off, which means it could still produce a little residual groundswell with enough oomph to it to propel an old guy on a longboard to the beach enough times in a row to be called fun. A lot of times when these systems pass, the backside of it is as flat as a pancake, but, being the pathological optimist that I am, I’m going to call Saturday waist- to stomach-high and fun. Go early before the sea breeze wrecks it — and stay out of the traffic. |
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