localswell

Surfing will surprise you with every chance it gets. (And so will life for that matter). An escape, and a social activity, both at the same time. It’s duality, when you think about it, is seriously confounding. Something where the same person, in the same place, can find both things out about himself, and still be surrounded by friends.

Making that transition between groups of buddies can be precarious, but it’s manageable. It can take a while to find a group that meshes well together. There is always the coming and going of people before things feel like they’re “comfortable.” I got lucky, and, upon moving from Jersey to Florida, I found another bunch where contentment and enjoyment were plenty. But it was different. Adventurous, compelling, and doused with a ton of shit talking, but different.

When you relocate you ultimately have to know this going in. You’re never going to find individuals that become that first group of surf buddies. You grew up surfing together. You were a group of guys that experienced the same challenges in learning to surf during a point in life where days were entirely care free. Surfing made you who you all were together. That already all happened. You can’t experience that again.

Where do you go from there? You pushed each other to better yourselves. You saw one guy doing something cleaner or faster than you and you worked your butt off to be able to do the same thing. You were all in it together.
But out in the wilderness, everyone’s in it for themselves. Not in a bad way, necessarily. Not everyone at least.

Surfers can be extremely idiosyncratic, especially when it has anything to do with surfing. Tendencies in the water are already developed. My focus no being in a sense of skills, but how you act and react with others in the ocean. So the question begs to be asked: Do you continue those tendencies when faced with the opportunity of a new slate, or do you start anew?

When it comes down to it, it will be a blending of the two, to continue one’s development and progression in life. Because you’re never going to find that thing that presents the same opportunities, the same people, or the same experiences, especially like those of that first one. That’s something you usually leave it in the place you say you’re from.

    “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.

The death toll in the devastating earthquake in China has just recently reached 10,000; that’s almost 4 times as many fatalities recorded from Hurricane Katrina. There’s already been 11 shark attacks in Volusia County, Florida just this year, and it’s not even summer yet. Not to mention the recent shark attack fatalities in Solana Beach, CA and Mexico (the death in Mexico has spawned a mass shark hunt as well. Check out all the cruel details here: Shark Slaughter). Oil recently jumped over $126/barrel, undoubtedly another record high. Are you getting the picture?

Things seem a little chaotic right now in our world, don’t they? Well, at first look it may seem that way. But we must keep in mind the ridiculous ease of information transfer throughout the entire globe. Prime example: I’m sitting in my house in California writing this, a distant 3,000 miles away from my beloved homeland of New Jersey. And every time there’s a good swell at home I’m sure to see pictures and hear stories via e-mails, instant messages, and of course, Localswell.com.

The world has become almost completely equipped to contact any corner of it at the click of a mouse. This in turn has created a network where information is being passed from one end of the globe to the other instantaneously, causing every hiccup and fart made in Siberia to be known by someone at a remote distance. - or something to that affect, you get what I’m trying to say.

With all this death and chaos we’re hearing of it seems like the world is gradually slipping into an apocalyptic prophecy from some book written by ‘those guided by god’ (that’s a different topic for a different time). But is our society coming closer to this end of ends, or are we just completely inundated with these disasters and tragic events because of the network of information we have created?

I was recently working on an article discussing Dr. Gray’s hurricane predictions for the upcoming season. I also decided to do some research on the most destructive and deadly hurricanes ever. I came across some very interesting information. And I am not in any way trying to belittle the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina or any of the victims or people having to deal with the destruction, I’m merely pointing out the facts. Hurricane Katrina was only the third deadliest hurricane to date, as well as third most powerful storm when making landfall (check out the numbers for yourself: Deadliest and Costliest Hurricanes).

I also found out that hurricane seasons go through phases, and in the report there is an evaluation of two 50-year periods in which storms that made landfall are recognized. The report shows that from 1900-1949 189 named storms, 101 hurricanes, and 39 major hurricanes made landfall. Compare this with the last 50 years (1958-2007) of 165 named storms, 82 hurricanes, and 33 major hurricanes making landfall. The last 50 years has also seen an increase in global surface temperature of .4° Celsius, showing that even though the surface temperature is rising, there are past eras when hurricane activity has been higher. The report acknowledges changes in ocean salinity, as well as favorable upper air-steering currents as the major reasons for the unusually high tropical activity of 2004 and 2005. So why all the hysteria of ‘global warming causing more hurricanes,’ and ‘natural disasters are more out of control than ever?’ And don’t let us forget disasters in the old times, like the Black Plague; that’s estimated to have killed 75 million people, but there wasn’t endless media coverage of it along with complete and total availability of information then.

My point in all this is that we can’t forget to put things in perspective and we can’t be naïve about what happens in our world. Some things are just unavoidable and natural occurrences. The world is not coming to an end, global warming isn’t causing excessive storm activity, and sharks are not going to take a bite of every surfer out there. So a few attacks happened in a cluster, just like it’s possible for one to roll craps ten times straight. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s still possible. Don’t get hung up worrying about some terrible end while you’ve got this whole thing called life waiting for you to take hold of it and explore.

Going to college in Florida was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. A 3/2 is the most you’ll be wearing, there’s always plenty of chicks in bikinis, there’s always somewhere to go drink, and there’s also some damn good fishing. Upon returning to Florida after four months of starting anew in California, things picked up right where they left off, and it was like I never even left. And with that comes the one nuisance of being in Florida: the surf ‘picks up.’

While Florida is being ‘graced’ with two-three foot mushburgers, a thousand miles up the coast New Jersey is seeing a solid swell. Then the phone calls start from the boys at home: “Hey Ry, it’s been pretty fun up here. Chest to head with some little barrels here and there. What’s it like down there? Any fun ones?” As friends inform me about their current sessions, down here the wind has got a lot of north in it and the current is whipping down the beach, while the surf is dribbling in. Damn it.

Then the photos come and it’s frustration and despair all over again. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years spent in Florida it’s that, unless you’re at some of the primo spots down there, when Florida gets swell it’s ok, and when Jersey gets swell it gets good. I’ve probably just nixed any chance for myself of getting any waves while I’m in New Jersey for only a week this spring, but so be it. And while I’m back I bet Florida will be seeing the swell of a lifetime. I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes.