This weekend was an epic surprise. I haven’t seen Rockaway Beach this good since March of 2013. God and monster waves, raw off-shore winds, salty spikes and brutally cold sunshine.
I felt like the wave wizard. There was a moment when the ocean started building, you could feel and hear the mood. I was there, at the edge of the jetty, eyes on the big sets rolling in like freight trains and waiting for a surfer to take the drop.
“The biggest ones were coming in with ten foot faces but those weren’t the best,” Michael Reinhardt told me. “The best waves were the ones that feathered on the outer bars but didn’t quite break. Then, when they finally hit the inside sandbar, they detonated. Fast, frigid, hollow, heavy and make-able. I spent a good amount of time fighting currents to sit on the outside and find one of those waves. People looked at me like I was clueless for being so far out, but I knew my patience would pay. And when it did, I was rewarded with a bomb of a wave and a solid spitting barrel that I won’t forget for a while.”
Surfers were in their glory. My favorite sea freak friend, Russ Dungun, had his taste of Rockaway big.
“When we checked at 6am it was probably six feet and thick. I took two waves and got complete body flushed of ice water and ran back to the truck to change like a little cold wet dog and slammed a beer. By the time I put my clothes on and walked back to watch my friends it was easy six to eight foot, stacked up bombs. Easily over head, looked like a big hurricane swell. Fucked me up.”
