By Wednesday of last week, it was obvious that Thursday and, possibly, Friday would be good days. A tropical system that eventually became Tropical Storm Andrea formed in the Gulf. I always hate to hear about tropical systems because it can mean such disruption and devastation to anyone and everyone that ends up being in the path of a storm. The National Weather Service is predicting a busy storm season for the Atlantic/Gulf area this year. I hate to hear that. Many surfers don't mind though since they love the wave action created by such storms. A tropical storm formed pretty quickly in the Gulf last week. Although it was no threat to the Texas Gulf coast, everyone still paid attention to it since it was the first of the season. It was predicted to go inland in the southeast portion of Florida, and it did. Because of it's location, Galveston surfers realized that we would receive nicely formed waves. The prediction was that Thursday would be really nice and, if we kept our fingers crossed, the waves would still be here by Friday.
I couldn't make it down on Thursday morning, but I noticed the beautiful waves on the webcam and dreamt about being able to surf waves like those. The sets were perfect. I thought about going down after work on Thursday, but a quick surf report from surf dude Brian, made me realize that Thursday night wouldn't be the best night for me. The wind had picked up considerably in the late afternoon hours and, because of that, the waves were a mess. On Friday morning, I was surprised to see that the waves were quite nice again. Surfers were everywhere on the webcam, and I kept my fingers crossed that the waves would hang on until the afternoon. I headed down there after I left work at noon. It was incredibly crowded, possibly because it was the first week of summer break for local school districts. Many were out surfing. I couldn't find a spot to park at 43rd, and wanted to stay away from the crowds of surfers, so I drove to 36th. I found a place to park across the street and made my way to the water. Fortunately, only a couple of surfers were near the jetty. I paddled out and greeted the other two in the water and caught the first wave that came my way. I had a ball.
The waves were very small by the time I made it in the water, but they were well formed, which allowed me to watch, paddle and surf the waves. It would have been better if the wind would have been a little more out of the east instead of the west only because I'm a goofy-footer, which makes it
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The waves started disappearing
as soon as I got out of the
water on Friday. |
hard for me to go left on the wave. I kept surfing toward the jetty, which shortened my ride. I had a ball anyway. I caught several waves, dropped down on the board and paddled right back out for more. After a couple of hours, I paddled in. By then, the wave were incredibly small. They would definitely be gone by evening. And they were. Saturday was flat, and Sunday brought small, wind-driven slop that was surfable, but not really worth paddling out. (At least, that is what the surf dude said.) That's okay since Sunday was an incredible busy day for me. Today (Monday), the waves looked nice, but since I had to work and then run, I didn't have time to make it down for and evening surf session. It might be a couple of weeks before I get to surf again. But, it can't be helped. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that some pretty little waves will form once again. Although I hate to think of someone suffering through a storm, the swell it creates is pretty darn fun!
