Paul Francisco wouldn’t exactly have been starved for waves had he stayed home in New Jersey for the entire winter. But at the same time, who can blame him for escaping the cold East Coast for warm-water surfing? While the U.S. West Coast grabbed bomb-cyclone headline after bomb-cyclone headline in early January, the East Coast took its fair share of winter thrashings around the holidays too. That stretch between Christmas and the New Year was especially harsh on the Atlantic side of the U.S., so you’d imagine Francisco and filmmaker friend Maxwell Goldberg were more than ready for a run to Puerto Rico.
“We left just as that crazy cold storm was hitting Jersey,” Goldberg told The Inertia, which meant navigating all the hectic flight complications that came with flying during blizzards and storms in the U.S. at the time. Expecting to catch the best day of a swell once they landed, Francisco got one session in to kick off the trip before getting sick.
“He powered through,” Goldberg said, as the swell dropped and they spent the trip finding smaller waves and warmer water in Paul’s home away from home. “That didn’t stray us from the path though, Paul’s New Jersey roots have him prepared to surf anything from knee-high grovel sessions to stand-up tubes.”
Gotta imagine anything sounded better than battling blizzards back home.
