Snow, Sleet, Surf Hammer New Jersey: “At Least the Weather Keeps the Crowds at Home”
It’s cute when surfers in Southern Californians wear their beanies way up on their domes with the cuff above the ear, even. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s just something you notice during an East Coast winter, where you might wear a beanie for a week straight, on account of it’s cold indoors too.
It’s one of these aspects of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast surf experience that are unique to the region. Probably the Great Lakes too .... those people are lunatics.
But for instance, duckdiving a few 33° waves Monday, I noticed an ache in my back. In fact, everyone who surfed reported that same ache, realizing later that it was from shoveling snow Sunday and Monday.
Earlier, as I pulled up at the break, I saw a fella coming back over the dunes from checking it. Then I noticed he was on his knees. I did a double take and realized that he had went down. The snow drifts from the storm that chilled over two thirds of the United States had frozen, basically making the pathway into an ice luge. It’s just something that doesn’t happen that often on the trail to Trestles. You might get run down by a Lectric between the Freeway and Lowers, but slipping on ice on the list of hazards.
John Gilman
There wasn’t a single soul in the frigid water as sets pulsed off the jetty. We chatted in the frozen street. Neither of us wanted to surf alone – not so much for the size of the surf (still overhead) but because the windchill was 15° with the brisk afternoon offshores …Best to have a buddy.
The latest winter storm was a major headache from the Southwest to the Northeast, featuring flights grounded, dangerous icing in Mississippi, millions of streams of His & Hers on Netflix, a challenging swell on the Outer Banks, power outages and Shaun White joining the sledders in Central Park.
And for many, this was not a storybook kind of snowfall, as it turned into a nasty ice storm, leaving frozen coastal landscapes. But the storm produced.
It has been a bone-chilling winter. The cold swept in early everywhere east of the Rockies and it looks to stay Arctic through the next months. Though the East Coast has had a series of quick hit south swells with good wind over the last month, it hasn’t been proper overhead since the New Jersey rainbow swell of December 19. The snowstorm was a welcome event, even with the extra frosting.
John Gilman
“It makes me kind of wonder why people ever even settle in New Jersey because the weather here gets pretty offensive,” says Will Boothby, frontman of South Jersey punk outfit, Gutter Drunk and ink slinger for Fat Kat Tattoo in Atlantic City. He’s also one of two team riders for Ben Gravy’s new line of surfboards.
“My son and I had fun Sunday whomping around in the snow. I did all my shoveling after the snowball fights. We dug out a few neighbors’ cars then dug out my truck… but only to do donuts in the parking lot,” he shared.
“Ben Gravy made it easy for me. He had my suit, gloves and boots hanging next to his fireplace that night, ready to go with my boards in his van. I get the VIP treatment from Ben Gravy surfboards. I really just have to show up. I don’t even give him gas money,” jokes Boothby.
He was going through his pre-dawn rituals Monday morning when Gravy arrived at his doorstep. The pair had last traveled to Hawaii and caught a giant swell that wouldn’t drop.
“Looking at the buoys this morning, I knew we were going to surf, so I was stoked. But Jersey is one of those places where you really don’t know what you’re in for, until you paddle out. I didn’t know what I was in for even in my kitchen. As soon as I stepped outside, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
He described it as “cold” cold. The morning low was a modest 10°.
“On the way up to our top-secret sandbar we were peaking at the cams in the car as the sun started to come up. We saw a couple of nutty ones and knew it was on. Walking up the beach, the cold was just cutting through the suit and I was reminiscing about the last session I had, which was on the North Shore in December.
The surf was well overhead, a combo of 5.5 out of the south and 5.7 out of the east, resulting in near double overhead of the coldest A-frames you can handle. The wind was light creating that eerie gray glass. Boothby could feel each shovel full of ice from Sunday as he and Gravy powered through the cold plunges.
The surf bombed throughout the 1 pm high tide. The wind was west, meaning that pretty much every east-facing beach was on. The afternoon was smaller and more groomed.
“We got a couple sick ones and realized I had to come back home from Hawaii to finally get a good Backdoor wave. At least the weather keeps the crowds at home.”
As the swell fades, the temps (not including windchill) in New Jersey won’t even hit 30 this week but there’s another potential blizzard on deck before the month is over. The crew will likely just stretch before they shovel.