Hurricane Bill mission- Day 2

Wow!  What a long day.  Honestly, with all the things going on in my life these days, finding an hour a day to surf every day is usually all I can muster.  Today though, I surfed three separate sessions- something I haven’t done in many, many years.  So, here’s how the day went down:

Since I was up until midnight last night posting the Day One blog, I was out cold until 7:45am  when Brian Stoehr called my cell to tell me he was en route to a semi well-known First State spot and would call when he arrived with a report. 15 minutes later, after Vicki and I had gotten everything ready to roll, he reported that it was looking fun, so we booked it up there.  We had a long look and found heaving pits breaking pretty close to the sand with a solid crew of local and visiting bodyboarders out there, including Vah Beach’s  Ricky Miller, John Yax, Bryan Myers and Phil Hudson, as well as local legend Chuck White and a who’s who of Delmarva (Delaware/Maryland/Virginia) spongers on it.  With the tide coming in, theoretically it should have been getting better, so we took a little time to snap some pics before paddling out.  Check the goodness:

A pitching peak getting ready to heave

Shades of Newport's "Cylinders"

Is this "Off-The-Wall" or Delaware?

Chuck White ponders why he's not on this wave

Someone getting a facial at the bottom of this gem

A bowling keg makes a nice shelter for a lucky sponger

Team Rider Brian Stoehr saying, "Did you see that sick one that just came in?"

Hey, middle-aged dudes can pull into frothing caves too!

So, after that sesh, Vicki and I headed south into Ocean City and met up with the crew at 71st Street.  We were greeted with head-high sets and super-clean conditions with the waves breaking pretty close to shore with the high tide.  The water temps had warmed up noticeably overnight into the lower 70′s, and Vicki and I couldn’t wait to get out, but not before posing for a few obligatory lineup shots:

Just like the old days!

Dead glass and warm water. Get out there Vicki!

So, we got in a super-fun session with all the crew with wedgy peaks, barrels and ramps until the wind swung from west to southeast, putting an fugly bump on the quickly dropping surf.

After lunch, Vicki and I decided to head to the OC Inlet as it’s somewhat protected from the south chop and should have been okay on the medium tide.  We arrived mid-afternoon to find nearly empty little peaks, so we were out there.  No pics of that sesh, but suffice to say, I was reliving my old days at my favorite DK wave in Maryland where Vicki and I found some tasty little right and left wedgers for a good hour before the tide sucked the life out of it.   We got out content that we milked this swell for all it was worth and headed back to my Mom’s pad to go out for a belly-busting seafood dinner.

We opted to change our return tickets to SoCal for Monday, a day earlier since the swell was dropping so fast, and hopefully be back to catch the rest of the current SW swell hitting SoCal for the remainder of the week.   I have to say, this was one “surf and destroy” weekend I won’t soon forget and it was so fun seeing so many of my old Maryland/Delaware buddies and meeting a bunch of new ones, many of whom are our customers here at eBodyboarding.com.  I moved from here over 22 years ago, but still feel right at home when I come back to visit and surf.  Hats off to our man back in the office, Justin, for taking one for the team and handling things solo both Friday and Monday.  You rock Justin!!!  Hope to do this sort of thing again someday when our kids are older!  East Coast rocks!