More hurricane minutiae, this time with a purpose.  Surfers love hurricanes, even old decrepit surfers, who can’t help themselves.  We see something form in the far Atlantic, or Caribbean, and we start envisioning what might come our way.  Of course, we want nothing like what has happened to our brothers and sisters just off our shores in the Bahamas, and our hearts and prayers go out to them all, but generally speaking, these storms are our gifts.  If you watch the Weather Channel, or any of the cable outlets, you invariably see footage of some kook paddling out in the middle of the storm, with some anchor voice-over rightfully admonishing them.  That’s not what it’s about.  Depending on how far offshore the thing passes, provided it does, the fun waves come as it retreats.  Though not the best I’ve seen here on Skinny Island, Dorian provided us with some good swell as it moved up the east coast.

Here’s how it works:  When a storm is offshore south of us, it send sends swells our way from that direction, obviously, making for a southeast swell that breaks as a right-hander.  Directly offshore, the break is generally a parallel close-out, or, rarely coming in as a-frame peaks, the very best, meaning you can go either left or right.  As it moves away north, you get a northeast swell which generally breaks to the left.  All this is only important to surfers, of course, in that every surfer has a way of standing on the board, either left foot forward, known as regular-footing, or right foot forward, known as a goofy-foot.  A right-breaking wave benefits a regular footer, because you are facing the wave as you traverse, and a left-breaking wave, a goofy-footer, for the same reason.  I hope that is clear.  Yesterday’s waves were right breaking; today’s left.

As a regular-footer, I am more comfortable with a right breaking wave, but you go when the conditions are there.  Today was one of those days.  Light off-shore winds, and still a decent left-over Dorian swell.  Our son came by for breakfast, and after that we paddled out.  We have been surfing together since he was around eight years old, some 35 years.  It was gorgeous, clear skies, glassy conditions, with 4-5 foot breaking waves.  The only drawback was that it was low tide, and the waves were breaking in extremely shallow water on the bar.  The water was actually sucking up on the bar into the wave, so that there was barely a foot of water if you made the drop.  I caught one, and quickly realized I would be pummeled on the bar of I held on, so I backed off.  I’m not as quick as I used to be.  Jesse was not to be deterred.  The photo below shows his paddling into a good five-footer, which hammered him on the bar.  Thankfully, it’s not a coral reef here.  I retreated, the better part of valor, and took some photos with the GoPro from the bar.

But it was all so extraordinary, the beauty and power of the ocean, the danger– I got whacked so hard on the bar by a breaking wave I thought I’d broken ribs– and most of all being out with my son doing what we love most in the world.  The perfect day.