Hurricane Surf Begins

Ah my favorite time of year....hurricane season! Don't get me wrong, I don't like the destruction and all of the bad things that happen when hurricanes come to land. However, I do love it when they stay offshore and send powerful swells to the East coast. Any dedicated surfer on the right coast gets giddy this time of year, always on the lookout for those deep red blogs coming off Cape Verde in Africa.

I have surfed many hurricane swells in my day and each created a unique experience. I remember surfing perfect a-frame barrels in Crescent Beach for hurricane Floyd with debris floating all around me. Or the long and reeling right hand point break that only breaks with the perfect combination of swell size, angle and tide in North Matanzas Inlet that lit up for me on a freak day by some distant hurricane. Each storm has the potential to give me a memory that will last a lifetime and the thrill of that can't be beat.

So here I am, having surfed most of my life and I am finally living within a minutes walk of the water's edge. I can finally surf all the swells thrown our way from the great Atlantic storms without much constraint. Not only can I surf them all, but I can experience many different conditions throughout a swell or even a single day. My entire surfing life has been spent (except for vacations and whatnot) about 45 minutes away from the coast. Not so far that you can't drive to the beach frequently, but far enough for you to have to budget about 2 hours of travel...and that gets to be a big pain. No more of that for me, the only place I absolutely must go to is work on weekdays. But I could still surf before, during lunch, and all evening after; an impossible feat before I moved here.

Current forecast for the region from cflsurf.com:

"Aug 27 (Fri 5 PM) - Big surf is inbound! - The charts still indicate Danielle swell will begin to show early Sat morning (probably before daybreak). The swell will build thru the day and peak Sunday. On shore winds are coming with it, but maybe only 10 to 15 knots or so. A second major swell will arrive Wed. How big will it get? Plenty big enough for sure. Just watch for 15 to 16 second swell to show at the 20 mile buoy and head beachside soon thereafter. "

As of right now, 9:15 on Friday, the bouy's read 17 second dominant swell period 20 miles away. Can't wait till morning, the rest of the week, and all the way until the end of the season.

For reference, here is some surf from last year's hurricane Bill...