Tropical Storm Aurther formed May 15, 2020 over the Bahamas. It started its life with a north-northeasterly track. As cyclone-genesis occurred, a strong fetch of onshore winds formed and pushed swell into Florida’s east coast last weekend. Buoys were recording wave heights of 5.7ft @ 7 seconds on Saturday (May 16). This brought large, overhead+ surf to St. Augustine. This was the first part of the Aurther swell. Part two came later on as the storm began to organize into a more winter like storm and its tropical storm force wind radius extended. After moving past North Carolina, the storm made a southerly turn towards Bermuda, which pushed long period swell into the Florida coast starting on Wednesday (May 20). The swell maxed out on the St. Augustine Buoy Thursday evening at 4ft @ 13 seconds. Awesome long period swell was accompanied by light offshore winds every morning this week. This made for an epic swell all along the Florida coast.
During part one of the Aurther swell, I shot in St. Augustine Beach. A few days later when part 2 hit, I traveled down to Ponce Inlet and shot. On Thursday, I shot for five hours in Ponce Inlet!! Below are my top 10 favorite shots from the Aurther swell. They aren’t in order. They are just 10 epic shots. Enjoy!!
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These first three shots were all shot in St. Augustine. The first two were shot on the peak day of part 1. The buoy was reading 5.7ft @ 7 seconds, bringing super fun surf. The next shot of the air with the little girl was the next day. All three shots were taken of Casey Piester (@piestercasey)
The next seven shots are from part two of the Aurther swell. All shots were from Thursday at Ponce Inlet. The swell was 3.1ft @ 13 seconds early in the morning and the swell rose all day. Winds stayed offshore til about 1pm. I shot for 5 hours.
This shot and the next one were both inspired by Jimmy Wilson. The night before, I met him and we talked and he basically said you have to set yourself apart from other photographers to be able to make it in the surf industry. I took this to heart and I took those two shots. The A frame barrel has Cory Lopez (@corylopez) in it and the second shot is just an empty left.
This is Michael Dunphy (@michaeldunphy) on a nice layback.
This is Evan Geiselman (@evangeiselman) going vertical on a mental backside snap. I love this shot because you can see the size of the wave and just how powerful Evan is as a surfer.
This is a shot of Cory Lopez (@corylopez) back-dooring a mental A frame. Oneil posted a video on their Instagram of this exact wave (Kind of wished they reposted this shot…)
Anyway, even without a repost, it is still a mental shot and reminds me on Hawaii.
This is Michael Dunphy on a mental right. This shot just shows the size of the waves that pushed through all morning. Such a magical day.
This is Evan Geiselman with an absolutely insane blow tail. I love this shot because its insane and the water/backlight combo is crazy sick!
Thanks for reading my Top 10 shots from the Aurther Swell. Make sure to follow me on Instagram for more shots from this swell and swells in the future!
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