Third straight day of on-shore winds and the Atlantic is pitching a fit.  High tide at about seven-thirty this morning, and it was breaking 8-10 feet outside the last sand bar.  Three distinct breaks, with lots of white water mush between, ending in a thundering four-foot shore pound.  Messy, but ridable, although I’ve seen nobody out.  Water temp about 60.  I am pretty sure there was a time I would have charged into this, but no more.  This winter beat me up a little, and every little bit you let get away seems doubly hard to get back.  Every year it’s harder to get back into good surfing fitness, and the challenging days early on in the season just aren’t an option anymore.  I’m looking for 3-4 feet of groomed glass, I guess, warm water, an easy paddle out, and no tricks.  Still, I love watching this kind of power, and having been in it, know something of its extent.  There’s a cold, concrete honesty about the ocean; you take it lightly, and it’ll mess you up.  I like having that reality at the front door.  It’s very humbling.

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Not much of a fan of Daytona Bike Week, but it starts officially tomorrow, and they’re piling in.  All the little motels along this stretch of Skinny Island are filled, and there’s a more or less steady stream of cycles on A1A headed into town this afternoon.  Most of the activity is in downtown Daytona Beach, and for the last few years, out north of town at the I-95 interchange, but we get more than our share of ride-byes.  A1A is, of course, a special ride.  It’s a designated Scenic Highway along here, and there’s probably no better view, on the east coast, anyway.  I’m fine with that, and the parade, at its height, is a thing to behold, especially in weather like we’re having now.  The objectionable part comes in as a result of our unfortunate proximity to the convenience store a hundred feet to our north.

And it may be that only a very small percentage of riders actually pull in there headed south, for gas, cigarettes, etc., but it’s like Attila and the hordes when they pull out.  See, whether you had mufflers on your bike at home or not, (you probably did; it’s the law everywhere,) when you go to Daytona, you run straight, loud pipes; against the law here, too, but with 500,000 cycles in town, very few busts.  So, when they accelerate out of the convenience store, and it’s never just one at a time mind you, but four, five, six, the noise of all those pipes at full throttle is literally deafening.  It rattles the glass in the windows, to such an extent that I have had to recaulk after almost every event.  Three or four days into this thing, and it’s very irritating.  Papa has been known to stand out front with the finger raised, but no takers so far.

Some years its cold and rainy, so the traffic falls to a minimum.  There is a slight chance of rain Sunday, but the whole week looks like sun and low 70s.  That means we’ll probably be getting out of town at some point and heading for the other coast.  We’ll see how bad it gets.

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Low tide and the waves are stacking on the outer bar and feathering a hundred yards out beyond that.  Most impressive.  The wind seems to have died a little though.  If it lays down overnight, there could be a whole different character by morning.  When it finally calms we’ll go down and see what’s washed in.