I’ve been on a long blogging hiatus over here at Conatus Surf Club. Winter. Holidays. PhD catch up. Lack of gumption. Surfing. Excuse time over. Just wanted to pop in to let you know all is alive and well here. We had a stellar first season* operating in New York. Lots of happy clients. Lots of improvement. Got some new equipment. Especially excited about the Malwitz Surfboards 8’8” egg—perfect for smaller people and advanced beginners. Tried a bunch of different wetsuit brands. At this very moment Ripcurl and Nineplus are out in front and Billabong is at the bottom of the pile. In pure surfing terms, we had a pretty killer fall here on the East Coast. Gonzalo was by far the swell of the season, producing perfect barreling waves in New Jersey two days in a row. Certainly expert only stuff, as is the case in any hurricane swell situation, but there were plenty of small perfect fall days to be had too.
And now we’re in the real thick of winter. Winter storm Juno just passed through and by the looks of it some truly diehard winter surfers seriously scored some epic blizzard barrels. I scored too, but not here on the East Coast. A week before the storm, I flew to CA to my hometown and break to spend quality time with my family and friends. I surfed every day and worked on papers every night. My dad got some great shots of my friends and I, a few of which are posted below. In the next few weeks I plan to post some more pics, a little video I made, a book review, and updates about what to expect in the upcoming season.
Cruising through the pocket on an old school single fin.
Photo: Richard Mattison
Layback lookback.
Photo: Richard Mattison
*As many know, I’ve been teaching lessons for quite some time, but this was the first season I’ve done so under the official name Conatus Surf Club. It was also the first year of this website.