Thanks, Hanna ... it's a surfin' Saturday!

I lucked out this time. Overnight the howling winds from Hanna took a turn for the best. Yesterday was a howling mess, big swells that were too messy until right before dark (see top photo). I checked it at 5pm, and it looked all over the place, so I gave up. I guess I should have come back, because the top picture shows the reward for those who stuck around. All night I listened to the report on the weather radio. It was ten feet at twelve seconds when I went to bed. That biggest day in Nicaragua the buoys were nine feet at eighteen seconds. Gulp. All night, I kept hearing the sea heights dropping. "Eight feet at seven seconds," then six feet at eleven seconds right before dawn. It was a race to get out there before it dropped much more. Mike Nadeau called at six am. "I can't even see it yet!" I said. He was at I-95, on his way to Crossovers. I am on my way, too, I tell him. I missed Andy's call as I was loading up the car. We had plans to hit secret spot later, and I was hoping he might want to look at Middles. When I got in the car, Andy called. "It's a freakin' kook fest!" he says. "Everybody and his brother are already out at the pier. It's like the short bus just dropped everyone off!" He had looked at Matanzas, and it looked like the sand bars had been obliterated on both sides. Crossovers looked fat and slow to me, although you could see there were definitely some good-sized sets coming through. But there were so many people pulling into the parking lot, before the sun was even up, that I felt sick to my stomach. SURFING IS TOO POPULAR! What to do? We had a plan to avoid all this. Andy and I met in the parking lot at the lighthouse, just like in a James Bond movie. We hopped on the jet ski and took off at 55mph across the water. "Please watch out for the manatees," I whimpered. Andy can see them a mile away, so it's not a concern for him. We were jumping over swells, me holding the boards as securely as I could, whilst screaming obscenitites. and holding on for dear life. THIS IS AWESOME! Adrenalin rush plus. We ended up at Middles, where Steve Borema was already out, and he smiled so big when he saw me. "This is history!" he said. It was true. We had surfed here about twenty years ago when he was young and I was youngish. The swells were coming in, bowling up, glassy and groomed clean by the WSW wind, just like then. We were in heaven. Three more guys paddled out. Look, it's Jeremy! We talked about our moms, who we both lost to cancer, and how they are still around us. Yes, they are. There are just too many weird coincidences that tell us this. What a gorgeous day. I caught one left I will remember here, a pitching wall that was larger than the rest that just stayed steep all the way in. I grabbed my rail and just held on, and made it through, all drenched and hooting. Then a right did the same thing. I shouldn't have made it, but I am hard-headed, and thought I might, and I did. Woo-hoo! The tide filled in, and the waves seemed to back off a bit, so we decided to check the point. Turns out it was probably too big. I paddled out and caught one, but it was all slamming shut and warped, so we headed to the pier. The crowd was nuts, and it didn't even look as good or as big as what we had been riding, so we decided to head back and rest up for later. Because Ike should be sending some pulses our way ... within hours.