The swell begins!

You could barely see as I pulled into the parking lot at the pier this morning, the sun at least a half hour away from coming over the horizon. Already though, there was a guy on a bike, carrying his board, and a van zooming up to the circle where you can look out at the ocean from the comfort of your car. It was going to be a zoo tomorrow, that was for sure. Everyone knows about the swell, the weathermen have been blabbing it all week long, how this weekend will be "for the surfers."

But, as I walked up to look, I could tell it was going to be the usual initial disappointment, the lines beginning to show, but mostly closing out. It's always the same. You wait and wait, and think today is the day the perfect swell will arrive, but it always takes longer than what your uncomprehending little brain can conceive. Those waves have a lot of ground to cover, much more than what you can imagine from looking at that satellite photo taken from up there in space.

But, it was the beginning, and you knew it was the minute you paddled into it. The distinct power, the surge, and strong current pulled Andy and I north. In the parking lot, minutes before, I had apologized for not being able to talk. I only had 45 minutes to surf before I had to get out of the water and go to work. Andy said he was right behind me.

Once out, we realized it wasn't going to be epic, and just resigned ourselves to the fact that this would simply be a little warm up for tomorrow. After just a couple of them, I was over it, and paddled in. Andy said he got a good one after I left, then it was off to school so he could take Ryan to meet his new teacher.

Every few minutes, as I worked, I stared outside to see if the wind had come up yet. It's always a relief to see the leaves bouncing around, so you know the wind has come up, especially if it's onshore, if you can't be there. It took awhile to come up today, but I knew I wasn't really missing much since I had seen it for myself.

I drove out at lunch to look, and the waves had come up a bit more, but so had the onshore wind. I decided to wait, and take a chance the afternoon storms might glass it off.

I had a tennis match with Amber at 4:30pm, and I watched the skies billowing as we played. The clouds gathered, and the sky turned dark. Maybe, just maybe, was what I was thinking. By the time I got to the pier, around 6pm, the swell had begun in earnest. "Wow," some guy said to me as we walked out on the pier, "Did you see that wave that guy just caught? Just to catch it, wow!" I agreed, and walked to the end, amazed at the huge lines pouring in, the horizon filled with spooky dark swells.

I think those were the biggest waves I have seen here since Hurricane David in 1979. It was double overhead on some of the sets, but so managable, many of them just reeling off. The paddle out didn't even look so bad. As I had almost made my decision to go for it, wishing Andy or someone I knew was around to paddle out with, I turned and saw it. The sky was a deep purple to the west. A wall of scary weather was descending, and the wind was coming up, blowing the tops off the waves in big fans of spray. What to do, what to do? It seemed I would only have about fifteen minutes, if I raced back to my car and paddled out. I mulled it over as I walked back, but it seemed to be too much to manage in the time I had, so I decided, after talking with Bob, who hadn't paddled out at all today (saving it all for tomorrow!), that I would go look at Matanzas.

To make another long story short, by the time I called Andy to tell him it was offshore, and driven all over to check the spots all the way to Marineland, it was nearly dark. Just after night fell, I got the call from Andy. His voice was ecstatic. He said he had paddled out at the pier, and had caught three of the best waves of his entire life.

I knew I should have stayed. Never leave waves!

It remains to be seen what will happen tomorrow. Bob said the Bahamas Buoy is now reading 21 feet at 17 seconds! WHAAAAAA? Gulp.