Surfers are a funny bunch. We’re like hamsters on a never-ending wheel. Always chasing something: a bigger swell, a taller tube, a better turn. Never totally satisfied.
Case in point: On Tuesday morning, in Cape Hatteras, surfers from all up-and-down the east coast dropped everything to be at the same stretch of beach, where 6- to- 8 foot waves unloaded on a shallow sandbar. Didn’t matter what it took to to get there. A big south swell groomed by a bitter wind made for some of the most beautiful barrels I’ve ever seen, anywhere. With a ripping current and 30 mph offshores, it was challenge enough finding a wave, and then you still had to make a drop. The vibe in the lineup was friendly, but serious: Swells like this happen once or twice a year, and every surfer out there was laser focused on making the most of it. The wave of your life was out there…if you could find it.
I made the 12 hour trek with Chris Ropero and Asher Nolan, and we met up with Ben Bourgeois. Asher, hampered by a tweaked neck, spent the day photographing and filming, from water, land and air. Ben, Chris and I put our wetsuits on at 630 am and didn’t take them off until dark. Jumping in and out of the water and car, moving between sandbars with the tide. Beating up our bodies, and torturing our minds. It was truly a test of one-day physical and mental fortitude.
Chris got a pair of insane tubes. Ben put on a tube-riding clinic. Ryan Huckabee and Mike Dunphy got the waves of the swell, and the unridden spitting slabs I witnessed will forever be etched in my memory.
Well, at least until the next swell, when we all forget all about everything we just rode and witnessed in the pursuit of something bigger, taller, and better.
Below are a collection of Insta posts filled with highlights from the day:
