Here are two fun vids of the two most prominent hurricane swells we received in NY in 2020: Paulette and Teddy. Both swells had a very similar track, forming off the the coast of Africa, heading west, then taking a sharp northward turn a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida. Neither of them hit land, which is exactly what we all want from Atlantic hurricanes — we love them spinning out to sea producing swell, but keeping houses and businesses on the mainland safe and sound. Both of them hung out in a more easterly area of the Atlantic giving the direction of both swells a strong easterly component. There was south in both as well, as they necessarily had to come from the south too. Paulette was a bit closer than Teddy, and for this reason I think she was a much better swell all around. Her proximity did produce pretty large intervals, upwards of 15 and 16 seconds on the biggest day, but she shined on the day of her arrival with still large intervals at 13 and 14 seconds, but nothing near the 17 seconds that two days of Teddy produced. I’m sure that Teddy was extra awesome at places that love longer, larger lines like that, but our sandbars prefer stuff really in the 9-12 second range. Even 14 seconds is pushing it in terms of long waits and closeouts, but Paulette seemed to have the right angle to produce consistent, peaky surf.
The hype on Paulette’s first morning was tremendous. I had like 10 people wanting a coaching session. And guess what? The surf was terrible in the morning. The swell had not yet arrived and the tide was in a really funky cycle — it was super high at like 4a and none of the bars were really working a mid outgoing. I cancelled the morning sessions, went back to the clubhouse to eat breakfast, then got back to the beach around 9a. Little pulses started arriving and by 930a it was clear that Paulette had arrived. We were surfing my beloved 60th St jetty, aka “first jetty” or as Ruth Mamaril calls it, “Tampons”, due to the sticks in the middle of the beach and because she thinks that calling a break “Tampons” will keep aggressive male surfers away. Great idea in theory, but as many know, it can be one of the most aggressive spots to surf in Rockaway. Still I love it because the jetties are very close together so it gathers a lot of sand and makes a very intense wave. The sand there, as everywhere, is always shifting and after Isaias it has piled up in front of the Tampons, creating an A-frame sand bar. At the time of this writing, this is not really the case. The sand has shifted again since Teddy and since a few windswells that have come since. But on the first day of Paulette it was A-frame heaven. Tons of little tubelets going both left and right with a big open face afterwards to practice turns. I have been working on opening up my shoulders in my cutbacks to get higher up on the whitewater for my rebounds and to make a more critical arc. I felt my intentional work was paying off in this session. My rotation felt good. I had also done a lot of work since the spring taking off under the lip with my hands down to maximize depth in the tube via a mid line on the wave.
Hands down under the lip take off to get under the hood from the start. Pic by Camille Murphy @skybluepinkco
I was joined in this session by Farmata Dia. Farmata is 19 years old, from Rockaway, and has been surfing for 3 years. She is is a part of the Laru Beya Surf Club, and also part of the new CSC Scholarship Program that I am implementing a.) to provide CSC style coaching for the youth of Rockaway so that they can become stylish, masterful surfers and exemplars of surfing stewardship; b.) to put to use expired sessions that people did not or cannot complete (there will soon also be a way to purchase sessions for these young people via the web store). Farmata rode my 6’9” Josh Hall speed egg. Her session started off slow, and then she really came into her strides towards the end. She is super stoked on surfing and wants to make a career out of it one day. We surfed together on the Teddy swell as well, which was much harder overall, but she did manage to nail a sick shot by Brian Bedder. She didn’t tell me at the time of the session that she had gotten tubed, and when I texted her about it, she said that she didn’t know she was in the tube! So we’ll work on making those tubes more intentional moving forward.
Farmata in the tube during Teddy. Pic by Brian Bedder @bbedder.
Farmata and I surfed for about 4 hours during that peak Paulette time frame. I simply could not get out of the water. But by 130p the tide was starting to get a little high and the waves were getting fat. I was parched and hungry and really felt satisfied by the tubes and turns I had under my belt. I went back to the clubhouse, made a mozzarella and tomato panini with a panini press I found on the street in Brooklyn (I washed it down first of course), and got Mitch’s footage off of him in the backyard. Brant was hanging at the clubhouse for the day, doing work, and waiting for his evening surf window. The wind stayed offshore from the north all day. We went and checked a spot different from 60th St, and it was cooking with long, big lefts. Paulette had grown in size. Brant rode my 7’6” Barahona x CSC Tiburon/Potentia model and was absolutely charging. In fact he charged so hard that he gained an MCL sprain on his last wave. It was a bit of a bummer but you know what? If you’re not getting hurt, you’re not charging. And if you’re not charging you’re not progressing in your surfing. Injuries happen. They’ll make you a better surfer.
Brant pre-injury on an overhead bomb during Paulette. Screen grab of video by Mitchel Blummer.
Clubhouse grinds!!!
The second day of Paulette was large and in charge and wobbly. The place we had surfed in the evening was not doing its thing at all. Then I got a report that 60th was not either. I did not, however, go and check it with my own eyes, and that was a mistake. Instead I drove half way to Rhode Island with Catee Lalonde, then got a report from Rhode Island that it was not totally firing either, so we turned around, drove back to NY, missing the best window of day 2 Paulette. By the time we got back it was 11a and the wind just died. It was still glassy but it was far from offshore and perfect. We scoured the surf zone and found a new-to-us wave, which was pretty novel and pretty darn good. It felt like if we hadn’t of made those calls we wouldn’t have scored it as we did, and we surfed alone. Catee, per usual, was charging. I had a good time too. There was a lot of water moving, however, so it was a marathon of a session. It felt like a surfing triathlon: paddle, surf, run up the beach, repeat. At the end of the day we were stoked to have surfed NY alone in good sized waves. I was also reminded the golden rule of surfing: NEVER LEAVE WAVES. It was also a good check to stay in the backyard, especially since we’re still deep in this pandemic. I think there are some good calculated risks one can take with surf travel right now, but I personally feel less comfortable impinging on others’ territory with a highly contagious disease still raging around the country.
Teddy was close on Paulette’s heels, and like I wrote above, had a very similar track. But he also had very different local wind conditions, tide cycle, and also the sand bars had shifted after Paulette and seemingly during the first few days. One thing was sure, however, and that was that I was not going to leave Rockaway. The conditions were favorable enough for staying local, and I didn’t want to lose surf time driving. It was a great call. Another great call was driving to NJ the Friday before Teddy hit to pick up a new 5’10” thruster that Charles Mencel shaped for me. On my way out of town I stopped by Barewire Surf Shop to get fins, a leash, and grip, and noticed some super discounted Tomo boards in their used board rack. I have wanted to own one of these for quite some time, but never wanted to pay full ticket for them. I found a 5’4” for $200 and brought it back to NY with me. Nothing more exciting for an advanced surfer than having new boards to ride for an impending swell. You’ll see in the videos above I rode my trusty 5’4” fish all of Paulette and these two new boards during Teddy.
Freshies! 5’10” Mencel on the left and 5’4” Tomo on the right.
Teddy’s first pulse came on a Sunday afternoon. Conditions were a little ragged with the NE winds. I heard a lot of people were in town, again expecting greatness from the first pulse of swell, and were disappointed. I had the luxury to wait it out and around 1p of September 20th I surfed the rising swell with Emory Lee. Emory has recently moved Rockaway (although she had lived there previously), so we’ve been able to work together on the fly, texting when the conditions line up. She had a few amazing rides that session despite the funky winds and droves of people from NJ frothing around the lineup (totally understandable for them to surf NY when winds are NE — there were simply a lot of them).
The swell got increasingly bigger throughout the evening, and a pretty memorable session went down before dark. We didn’t film much that session. MG is still healing so I haven’t been pushing her to be at the beach at all hours. There were huge sets breaking far out on the middle peak but I stayed inside to get these left drainers on the shallower inside bar. It was hard to stay in there though because I’d have to take multiple set waves on the head and they’d lure me further outside than I had intended to sit and thus would catch me out of position for the waves I had identified from the beach. The rights were more prominent with the changing sand, but most ended in a slamming closeout in very shallow water. After I had my fill I let the post work surf demons have at it and went back to the clubhouse to rest up for two more days of pumping swell.
I woke up early and surfed alone on my 5’10” at 60th St. Mitch filmed. That’s the first morning surf you see on the Teddy video. It was pretty big and lumpy with a lot of water moving around. Not the world’s greatest session, but it was nice after the evening froth fest to be surfing alone. I remember some pink foam sprays that came off the back of a few waves and an oily orange water surface from the rising sun in the east. After a few fun ones, we switched locations to a sandbar with smaller waves, but great shape, and I got to ride the Tomo. That’s the last session in the Teddy vid. I surfed the whole day and ended up back in the 60s for the final session. The swell was still pulsing hard around 8ft @ 17 seconds.
The following morning, Tuesday, was the biggest of the swell. I surfed alone again, this time on my 6’6” Mencel 6 channel twin pin at “the second jetty”. There was a lot of water moving — there was a rip like a thunder head coming off of the tip of the jetty. The peak in the middle of the beach was really good, but it is hard to not want to sit at the top of the jetty and get one of those draining screamers across the beach. I think I rode about 4-5 of those. One was particularly memorable because it was solid double overhead and I almost went too high in the tube, but dropped down just in time to make it out. I eventually tired of fighting the rip and went over to the first jetty to see what the center peak was all about. It was big and mushy. The old guys were having a blast, but I was a little bored with it, so I came in to get a better view of the lineup and see if there were more enticing waves that were going unnoticed. Brant was on the beach watching the surf — such a good student and ocean devotee — and MG had just walked over from the clubhouse. I watched a bit longer and noticed that inside bar had a few moments worth seeking, but the 6’6” was not the tool for the job. New game plan was grab 5’10” and hunt inside tubes. I pulled into the first one I got and almost made it out, but was just a touch too deep. My fin hit me in the butt and ripped a hole in my suit. No skin was broken. I walked up the beach and used the rip at the jetty to paddle back out. The sand had shifted even further west, so the main peak we were all surfing was to the right of the tampons, with the lefts pushing dangerously close to the jetty. We do have some footage of this session from the CSC cam, and it appears I barrel dodged a few because the jetty was so close. Still painful to see that I could have and should have stayed in the tube for longer or tried to get in earlier. And that is what footage is good for. Even if I never post it (it’s a bit shameful for me), I have learned from it.
With another long morning surf in the books, I went back to clubhouse to fuel up. Mitch had finally woken up in Brooklyn, and he said he had time to come out and film around noon. By this time the wind was cranking offshore from the N and conditions were as clean as you like. Sets were inconsistent but big. I decided to surf a jetty I never surf — 69th St — because I had been doing surf checks and knew that the sand is particularly good there this year. I have not wanted to contend with the crowd however, so usually chose to stick to my more familiar zone. It was nearing peak high tide and there was a lot of water in the water. The crowd was light at the moment I paddled out. I opted for the 5’10” again this session. In the video it’s the session with the sparkling water (middle session). I had a few fun ones off the bat, and had one particularly great tube that Mitch didn’t catch on video. It was hard to see with the higher tide. He probably would have had to be on a platform or a ladder. Farmata joined me mid session as did a crowd of “bros” who would paddle around us and one another and just had terrible surf etiquette overall. It was a super tough session. There were a few gorgeous waves coming through but the work for the reward started to diminish. The upshot, however, was that Brian Bedder happened upon the beach with his camera for the best portion of the session and got some insane shots of me and Farmata (that’s the shot of her above). After two hours I called it quits and started hunting around for more waves.
69th St session bomb. Pic by Brian Bedder.
I went back to the old haunt for the afternoon and evening surf. Tried both jetties again. Had a particularly spectacular barrel dodge on my first ride — another double overhead screamer — I just couldn’t set the rail from the takeoff and the thing rifled down the line without me inside of it. Second one I made it in and out. Third one the bottom fell out and it launched me from the sky. Paddled over to the familiar peak and got a few shallow, but perfect tubes. It was empty at that moment. Then the crowd came, the wind puffed up from the west creating a devilish cross chop, and the tide dropped out to nothing, making the inside somewhat dangerous. Juan was out pulling into every closeout he could scramble into. There were some spectacular wipeouts. We filmed a little bit, but again, nothing to write home about. I heard that the NJ crew had a dream session down there that evening. I surfed down the there the following day with Zac K. It was small but clean as a whistle, and we found a draining left hander all to ourselves. Great way to end the swell.
Paulette and Teddy were super fun, but they’ve been about it for our hurricane season so far. We had Kyle back in August. He was very short lived, but also very, very good. We’re all really stoked on that run of surf. We’ve had more since then, but not hurricane produced. We’re nearing the end of what has been the weirdest hurricane season I have seen since moving to the east coast in 2009. So many storms, so few of them producing quality surf. The surf from Paulette and Teddy was quality for sure, but there was always something a little weird, a little funky about it, except of course for the first 4 hours of Paulette, which is basically what anyone wants from any surf session all of the time. The coolest thing about both swells for me is the fact that we now have the clubhouse down in Rockaway. It’s so rad to drive back to a pad in your suit and be able to eat, rest, stretch, and look at footage, and then just head back to the beach losing no time at all. Super rad to see the crew starting to use the co-work capabilities in the backyard and on the porch so that they can stretch out their surf days as well. Will have to figure out a plan to keep everyone warm, stoked, and Covid-free through the later fall and winter, and am pretty confident we’ll figure it out.
