The front runner swells from Larry are showing up now in east facing MassBay. Took the opportunity to get an early AM session in. These were true groundswells with intervals of 15-16 seconds. Although only thigh to waist high, there were plenty of zip in the waves. There were also pulses of bigger sets that provided a preview of what’s building for next couple of days.
Appreciated getting some sprint strokes in and having a tune up of the offside roll before the bigger sets this Friday into Saturday.
I thought today was a mellow “fun day.” For others, it evidently can be a bit much, especially if equipment and/or skills don’t match.
This rescue happened near my “home break” which I was NOT surfing at today. It’s replete with dicey rocky reefs, shoals and tricky currents. Not a good place for the unsuspecting beginner.
Talking about beautiful lined sets… Wow, did you catch this footage of the Laird Hamilton catching the world’s “longest wave”? I got stoked just watching it.
Looking forward to more lines of long period swells this Saturday, with sunny skies and summer temps.
Caught the last of the TS Larry groundswells yesterday morning. Driving over, under clear blue skies, couldn’t help but ruminate about that morning 20 years ago. Then too I drove to work under a crisp, beautiful and calm blue sky. Got to downtown and found people vacating downtown as news spread of the twin tower attacks. I went to the my work place, a community center, that serves as emergency shelter for different types of emergencies. There I got more news of what had happened and what more were to come.
Life is precious and some of us are blessed with opportunities to enjoy that which mother natures grants us…
Such a beautiful morning… That much more reason to not forget, to take time to appreciate and to honor those who risked and gave their lives for the sake of others.
I am not going for a pun here… on Saturday and Sunday a choral group I have sung with had their first times performing since the world ended, in outdoor settings and everyone vaccinated, recently tested and distanced from the audience. Masks as needed for safety. We sang a shortish - 45 minute - program of works by Lauridson, Gawthrop and others that singers would recognize.
The Saturday performance was in a park in Saratoga that has a 911 memorial by a local sculptor which is designed around a section of girder from the WTC. The Sunday performance, at a farm in the middle of nowhere near the VT border, was interrupted at one point by a small plane that came close overhead between two pieces.
While having no musical talent whatsoever, I am often surprised and appreciative of the way certain pieces can connect to the deeper self. We lost one of our volunteer board members several weeks back. She is often cited for her successful and pioneering/challenging career as a Black woman in Boston’s stodgy financial services market. After retiring, she volunteered her expertise to our organization as well as to the Handel and Haydn Society. Although seemingly healthy and fit - she walked and worked out regularly at a gym - she left us at a relatively young “old” age of 75.
At a brief commemoration of her life at our board meeting last week, someone picked a classical dirge, the words to which I didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. We were moved to tears as the song not only touched us but also reflected and celebrated our friend’s own commitment to music as a universal language. May the music play on.
