Fresh Friday editorial for October 21st, 2005
by WeAreH2O.Com editor
WeAreH2O.Com Fresh Friday Main Index
Slater yada yada yada, Agonizing Wait, and Gloating.
Fresh Friday Oct 21, 2005
Pro-Surf Ramblings
The Kelly Slater run to the Seventh World Title is on hold until October 31st when the Brazilian contest takes place. I’m going to save my words and link to the ASP article of the current women’s and men’s title chase here: ASP World Tour Title chase article
Agonizing Wait
I got that phrase from the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) discussion on Hurricane Wilma’s future tracking! Agonizing Wait! That is exactly what Floridians are feeling as we witness Cat 5 Wilma currently hitting the Yucatan peninsula this Friday morning. We wait and wait and wait. We keep looking at each successive model run and see that Wilma is coming our way! But we wait…and agonize over it. This is typical for a Floridian surfer. It seems that we do more agonizing waiting than we do actual surfing!
This has me thinking of the three stages of surfing. The future, present, and past stages of a surfing event.
The first stage is predicting the future and being part of that agonizing wait, the feeling of giddiness knowing a swell is approaching. The preparation of plotting low pressure systems and contemplating swell arrival times is part of this stage. It is agonizing!
Second stage is the actual surfing. Of course this is the best part, the pleasure of immersing ourselves in the fun sport of surfing. Everything from the travelling, to the paddle out and dropping in a wave, and finishing up on the typically surf-out travel home.
Thirdly, is the past or the post-surf stage. This includes gloating and bragging to others the overall surfing experience. “Yeah, you should have been here yesterday!”
All three stages combine to make surfing unique! The agonizing wait is just part of the equation that makes our surfing obsession that much more rewarding. We know that we have experienced the thrill of surfing before and want to reach that climax again! As a surfer, we experience highs and lows. From being agonized on an approaching catastrophic hurricane to the thrilling ultimate feeling of gliding down the storm’s swell!
The NHC summed it great with the phrase, "Agonizing Wait"...
We Are Water wishes that everyone will be safe as Wilma bears down on Florida. It looks as both the West and East Coast will be affected by this potential deadly storm! Here is the NHC website with the latest trackings: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
We Are Water Happenings
I missed last week’s Fresh Friday article due to other responsibilities. However, I did get two articles pushed out by Dermot over on the Swell Memories link. I also have two new articles to be published by logjammer and B.K.William. Both these articles need to be edited and ‘webmastered’ and should be out next week. Meanwhile, here are the direct links to Dermot’s articles:
Website development keeps on getting hampered by our record breaking Fall
2005 swell season and other responsibilities. Both have been hectic, but
fun! We had a really fun swell last week from a Newfoundland Storm. Swell
periods were hovering around 16 seconds which is rare in these parts.
This Newfoundland storm probably won’t be remembered as it didn’t
have an associated name to it. But, maybe it will live on in this Fresh
Friday article! I wish I took some photographs of that swell
as it was really big and very fun. But, I find it hard to take pictures
when the surf is that good! (This is part of the the third stage and gloating
mentioned above)
See ya’ll out in the water!
David Reid
Sales@WeAreH2O.Com
Do the people in this boat have an agonizing wait?
Below are two photos I found on my various Internet travels. I'm sorry I don't give credit to the photos as they are excellent photos and well deserving to the photographer. I usually do give credit, but when I saw them I quickly downloaded them to my hard drive and forget to jot down the information. My intention is not to break any copyright laws but to simply share some awesome photos. The first one is from an unknown location and the second one is from Teahupoo.
