When:
Where:
Weather:
Surf:
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Thursday, December 1, 2005
12th Street, Ocean City/MD
Overcast. Air was in the low- to mid-40s (overnight low was 33F); water at about 50F, light winds.
Waist to chest with a very few head highs; sandwiched between nor'easter & Epsilon swells
Dead high going to a minus tide
Neal Carver and myself; one other person episodically
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4:30am: Oh, am I ever tired this morning! Quickly showered to shake me awake, brewed some espresso, and hit the road.
5:00am. Left the house on a cruise to the
Pirate's Cove near Annapolis for a ride with the one-eyed jester.
5:30am: Hmm... parking could become an issue at our club's usual rendevouz spot
as there are signs posted everywhere about towing. The emphasis appears
to be overnight parking but who wants to take a chance? I roll the dice
and decide to park this day. Cruise the lot and find two sets of G-cars
and pickup trucks... that's strange. I pull in alongside a bunch of
them hoping to blend in.
7:00am: Sunrise with about an hour to go: big,
beautiful and orange. Not much wind seen anywhere. Prospects are good
even if the tides are not with a very high tide moving to a minus tide (to the right is the following day's low tide):
2005-12-01 06:56 EST 4.77 feet High Tide
2005-12-01 10:00 EST New Moon
2005-12-01 13:25 EST -0.31 feet Low Tide
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(Note: Click on pics for larger views.)
Photo by SC, courtesy of SurfingOC.com. |
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8:00am:
Rolling into to Ocean City over the inlet we can see the shoals
breaking. This is a good sign! Time to scout out the spot for the day.
First stop is 9th St., for a surf check and to pay respects to el
numero dos. The surf if fair, bumpy, a little disorganized, but it is
breaking despite the high tide; nobody is out. Next, we check 48th to
find a shortboarder and bodyboarder the lone souls braving the morning
chill. A couple nicely formed waves roll in and break nicely. Long
intervals between waves/sets with lot's of straight-on closeout junk.
Neal is cringing as he feels cursed by this break. We head back to 12th Street and wait for the tide to settle.
9:00am: Suit up and paddle out time. I string up my new flippers,
cross my fingers and hope that I have finally found some suitable cold
water charms. We must have picked the biggest and longest set of waves
for the paddle out. All of a sudden 3 footers appeared to be like 8
footers... I will chalk that up to the full rubber loading experience.
I opted to wear my 6/4 this morning instead of the 4/3 because of the
cold morning air, chill water and light wind. Hell, I am not hitting
the cold surf for another couple of months--stay warm and spoil myself!
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Sampling of Thursday's surf.
Photo by SC, courtesy of SurfingOC.com.
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Surf wasn't
close to epic, but there is the
special consolation prize... I am away from the office after being
strapped down hard through at least a few decent swells since my last
session in late October. With a Florida trip coming up soon it was an
added bonus to
hit the cold surf.
Bonus bragging rights: I'll be able to tell the grandchildren that I
surfed some swell generated from a tropical storm on the day after the last day of
the hurricane season. "Thank youuuuu, TS Epsilon."
Reassurances for oiPaul who had to toil for The Man at his new G-job:
Fair waves, lacked consistently good shape, and no honest tube
rides. But, two solid thrashings as the tube closed and sucked on me.
Neal
probably had the best two drops, both on head-plus, beautiful peaks...
he blew them both! Aghhhhh, I wished it was me on those peaks!
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Graphic courtesy of Wunderground.com. See satellite pic.
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Some
surfed rolled in early on Friday, Dec. 2nd, but you had to be on it
early before it flattened out. The Delaware buoy showed a rapid decline
throughout the day: SwP continues in the 12 sec range, but SwH has
declined from 4-6' to 1-2'. Sorry to those that missed it on Wed/Thu
and early Friday morning.
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Photo by SC, courtesy of SurfingOC.com.
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New fins for
winter worked! I've been running
through quite a few different pairs looking for something that
works well for me in cold water and 5mm+ of wetsuit socks. Today my
prayers were finally answered: Hydro Techs. Many thanks to Justine who
highly
recommended these surf fins. Justine has become a hard charging "local"
since enrolling at Salisbury University this fall. She is also one of
the featured riders in eBodyboarding.com's 2006 calendar. Expect her to have a Hydro's sponsorship by 2007!
More on surf fins/flippers here.
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Justine at Southside (IRIS).
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