Thursday, September 9, 2010

Hurricane Earl

             I took a trip to New York to catch some Hurricane waves. I left 12 hours after deciding that it was worthy of a surf trip.  I flew out of Santa Barbara airport and arrived in New York at the  JFK airport. I got some sleep that night then woke up and we drove 4 hours to a spot in Delaware we had scored last summer on Hurricane Bill. We drove along the Jersey Shore and then caught a ferry to Delaware. We went for a surf but the conditions were nothing like last year when we got 6-foot draining barrels. So we decided to take the ferry back to Jersey and look for some surf there. We drove for another hour then got to a beach in Ocean City and it was terrible nothing liked we had planned to get on this swell but we did see bigger waves down the beach. So we kept on driving and sure enough we pull up to jetty wave and it looks super fun rights just peeling for good amount of time. We all had a good session and were very surfed out after that. That was day one. The next the swell would be at its peak and planning had to be spot on.



                                                                    New Jersey below...
Long Island above

             We check the forecast for the winds and came to the conclusion that Long Island would be a good spot among many. So we woke up and drove straight to the beaches near Long Beach but probably fifteen minutes away(from Long Beach) at a place called Gilgo where big waves slightly break on the Outside and then dump hard on the inside. We were stoked to see good size waves and a couple good peaks up and down the beach. I surfed for about an hour then we went more towards Long Beach to see what was going on there. I paddled back out in front of a jetty where a fun right was.  The winds at this point were side offshore and making it difficult to do turns or airs. Adam Lambert and Andrew Bennett paddled out to get some waves and both got some incredible rides. We decided to grab some food and then head back to the beach. After eating some food at a local Cafe. We drove back to see the wind was now straight offshore and the waves were epic. Some of the best East Coast I had ever seen. We grabbed our boards and ran down the beach while Seth our Photographer and friend had to pay for parking which cost us $25.00 bucks. We did not really care at this point we were stoked to get some good waves.We surfed for another four hours and got some fun tube rides the best part was looking up or down the beach and seeing a wave just barrel and spit its guts out. People on the beach were freaking out watching the waves and everyone had their cameras out snapping shots. We all came in to the beach tired and surfed out and I could not watch any more waves go unridden so I forced myself back out there and I was so stoked I did. About twenty minutes into my session the sun started to slightly make its way out of the clouds. Then another twenty minutes later the whole sky went purple and orange and it was one of coolest sunsets I had ever seen. I came in once there was no more light.


                Kilgar photo below...

Thanks to Seth for letting us stay at his parents pad and for driving mostly the whole way!

       Kilgar photo above


 The next day Andrew and Adam were too tired for another surf mission. So Seth and I took a road that was crazy we drove seven hours to the northeast. We got there to find perfect waist high waves and a very crowded beach. We had stopped in Rhode Island on the way but waves looked horrible so we kept on driving. It was a fun trip and we were still glad to make the journey north even though we got skunked. Hurricane Earl was a really good wave producer but it came one day and was gone the next. It was 1:00 am when we got back to New York and I was so tired but we reviewed some footage and some photos of the trip. I had planned to leave the next day at 10:15 am out of JFK so I thought I had some time to rest. Seth had more stuff to do besides look at photos and it kept him up all night and sure enough Orbitz calls him at 4:00 am and tells him my flight is scheduled to leave at 6:30 am because he booked my flight. So Seth tries to wake me up but after two hours of sleep I did not want to get up. He said"Kilian your gonna miss your flight" he turned on the light in my room and then he walked down stairs so I turned off the light and went back to sleep. Then five minutes later I woke up to him telling me again something about my flight and how orbitz called him. So then he showed me my itinerary  on his email so I finally got up and dragged myself to the airport. I luckily made my flight and came home to beautiful  Santa Barbara.

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