Swell Memories by Dermot
Seasons To Remember
SEASONS TO REMEMBER
by Dermot
In a way winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature. -Edna O'Brien
I pulled into the almost empty parking lot at La Jolla
Shores at around 7 A.M.
The first rays of the eastern sunlight, which had peaked earlier above the hills around La Jolla, now exploded into a brilliant powder blue cloudless sky covering all of Southern California.
The surf was small - knee high at best - with water temperature in the high 50's to low 60's. A few surfers were out in the tiny and inconsistent surf and a handful of people were beginning their morning walk in the cold crisp morning air.
I was about to turn the car off and go for a walk myself
when a Dan Fogelberg song entitled Auld Lang Syne came on the
radio. Dan Fogelberg is one of my favorite artists so I sat back and listened
to the song. For those unfamiliar with the song, it opens up with a young
man meeting by chance an old girlfriend, a long lost love, on a snowy
Christmas Eve. As I sat back and listened to the song I began to recall
my own Christmas's... my own wintry memories of years gone past.
I don't think my fondness for winter surf has a lot to do with the bigger
winter swells. For me, surfing in winter is a time when the natural coastal
beauty seems to stand out in the cold crisp air. The cold morning air
coupled with a cloudless blue sky set against the browns and greens of
the beach always make me hesitate and look…just before I venture
out into a winter dawn patrol.
Aside from the wintry color contrasts that Mother Nature provides us, winter surf sessions are a time of shared anxieties – cold water, bigger swells and strong currents. Share these winter hardships with others and a strong bond will develop – you become part of the brotherhood.
The shared anxieties and nervousness about larger swells and cold water always brings out the best in us…makes us want to share those wintry moments a little longer. Inevitably, hot chocolate, coffee, a freshly baked doughnut or a bowl of hot cereal always followed my winter surf sessions with friends.
We would sit and talk about the session...how cold it was, or how bad the drift was, or how hard it was to paddle out. My friends and I could be in the water for hours but those hours were invariably matched out of the water just warming up and discussing the session. As much as anything else, it was the winter post surf sessions that bonded us together as friends.
As I got older (as opposed to growing up) and lived and surfed in various coastal communities around the country I learned that each of these coastal environments, particularly in winter, were uniquely different. As similar as many of these beaches were during the “summer season”, it’s the winter surf season that made these many different beaches truly unique.
Regardless of where I’ve lived, California or the Carolinas, I still measure these spots against the beauty and warmth of a Florida winter swell.
My first memories of winter surf were as a young Jr.High/High School student. I can recall listening to the radio or watching the weather on television and hear about the impending cold front. I’d sit in class and look out the window at the northern sky and watch the cold front with its east-west line of clouds get closer and closer. I could see and hear the wind pick up out of the south knowing that in the shortest of time the wind would swing around and be out of the north.
Based on the color of the sky as the cold front approached, and the direction and speed of the wind, we would make a guess as to when and where the surf would be good. When we were too young to drive we’d talk somebody’s parent into driving us to the beach after school. When we became old enough to drive many a winter evening was spent driving back from the beach in the dark talking about how long the swell might last. The ultimate event was to catch a swell on a Friday afternoon/evening followed by an ever so timely entry into the high school basketball game wearing our favorite surf apparel - usually a hang-ten jacket – we were so cool! We’d usually stop right in front of the cheerleaders and yell to one of our surf buddies up in the bleachers “you missed it – Lake Worth Pier 4’- 6’ no crowds.”
My first winters were spent prior to surf fax, the Internet, or some costly swell prediction number to call - it was just listen to the weather…and guess.
Searching for that elusive winter swell along Florida’s coast was always an adventure. Sometimes we’d guess correctly and pull up to a beach with the stiff northwest wind pulling the tops off a perfectly shaped left-hander. We’d look out towards the horizon, towards the Gulf Stream, and see no discernable distinction between sea and air. The Gulf Steam was filled with mountainous swells conflicting with the northerly current of the Stream. And of course at other times we’d pull up to the beach expecting a swell…only to find nothing, zero, zip, zilch.
We’d go home frustrated and disappointed; but at
least we made the effort and had fun in the search. (I’m still debating
if, as a culture, we have lost or gained something with the modern surf
“predictions.”)
Dan Fogelberg’s song finished and I began my walk along La Jolla
Shores.
I walked North towards Scripps Pier and on that crystal clear morning I could see the San Diego coastline as it curved north. I guessed on that particular morning many a surfer was pulling up to their favorite San Diego spot hoping to find a swell arriving earlier than what all the modern prediction devices stated.
As I looked out at the gray-blue Pacific my thoughts didn’t turn to California with its numerous breaks but to the winter spots in Florida. I was hoping that an early cold front arrived in the Great State of Florida and like I did many years ago, maybe some young kid and his buddies were scouring A1A for that elusive North swell.
Hopefully, when they found it, and surfed till their hearts content, they’d get something warm to drink, tell some lies about the waves, and end their day having fun at some school event.
~Dermot
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