“I guarantee we’ll have waves while you’re back Ry.”

Shit. I cringed. What was a completely innocent slip by an upbeat friend quickly decided what the surf was going to be like when I went back in a week.

The debate of whether or not to bring a board was now completely out of the question. I had a few old things to ride at the house, and I could always pick up a board from the Shack if necessary. I even contemplated not packing my 3/2 and boots, but decided that a decision like that could end in a blow-up of epic ironic proportions, the likes of which I had never been dealt before.

The weekend before I headed back to my beloved homestate of New Jersey, Trestles produced some really fun surf, crumbling along the point at chest to head high and really working like the summer spot it is known as. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was back in boots and gloves, and probably a hood, with not much on the horizon for my return for the week in late May.

That Monday evening I arrived back in Jersey. There was to be no surf until possibly Wednesday morning, and even that looked grim.

I got pretty torn up about this, and it nagged at me, like situations as these do so often. And I almost let it consume me like usual.

The only session of the week, that Wednesday morning, ending up being surfable windswell, but nothing like what had been gracing the coast of New Jersey before I had arrived.

It’s almost like voicing out loud, “one more wave.” It’s just doomed from the start. Catching that one more wave will take twenty minutes, which will be spent bobbing in flatness or getting three or four bad ones before that one good one comes through.

But there’s the other side of it too. There’s always those times when getting that last one consists of catching three or four really good ones and paddling back out because you can’t get enough of it. It’s all about how you look at things. I think that’s fitting for us Garden Staters, and is something we take around the world with us. Going out in anything and just being happy to have swell is never a bad thing, that’s for sure.