New England has been getting more “normal” winter pattern this past couple of weeks, with low disturbances passing through every 4-5 days. Unfortunately, these are fast moving “clippers” or bigger storms that have hit the mid-Atlantic states harder than southern New England. So, the windows for surf have been very small and I haven’t been able to make it work with my work schedule.
Today, I lucked out. We had a quick moving disturbance SE of the Cape on Saturday. Thought it was not going to be worth it as MagicSeaweed was forecasting really small, short period waves with strong offshore winds. All the more reason to always verified with NOAA buoy data and beach cam pics. Anyway, we were getting 3.5’ waves with periods of 8-9 second this morning. The Nantasket cam was also showing some pretty clean waves!
So, I quickly loaded the waveski, paddle, PFD and helmet and headed off to the south shore beach break. Took all of 15 minutes to head out. When I got there, there were about a dozen surfers loosely stretched out along the 1.5 miles of the public beach. Plenty of room. More important, the waves were looking beautiful. The periods actually lengthened heading into the noon hour. The offshore wind was fairly light at around 15 MPH and really helped to clean the wavefaces into glassy steep pitches.
Enjoyed the ease of getting to the break with waveski. Having surfed with the Delphin longboat for most of the fall and early winter, I got reacquainted with the stoke of that comes from surfing a craft that can adeptly do sharp cutbacks, top and bottom turns and rollercoastering. I think I wore a smile for most of the two hour session.
The 5/4 wetsuit was fine for the 42 degree water and 30 degree air temp. However, my fingers got cold in the 3.5 mitts. Decided to stop before my fingers went numb. Also blew my first roll. Realized that surfing with the longboat has resulted in a “lazy” waveski roll. With the Delphin, any easy layback with the head down would engage the hip to roll the kayak. Not so with the waveski. Have to keep the head down and concentrate on pulling up against the footstrap with the instep of the foot. I made sure to end the session with several good rolls on each side. I’m ready for more surf expected for this week.
Mahalo,
sing
I would like to blame COVID isolation rather than age-related paunch. Time to invest in some male Spanx to wear under the wetsuit. 
