So it goes…

When you live a normal life, not a sponsored or pro surfer’s life, surf trips are one of those things that you look forward to for weeks because you have to request time off, make sure things at home are in order, and try to get in some type of form that resembles being in decent shape to surf everyday.

For the past 15yrs I’ve made an annual pilgrimage up to Maine for some camping and surfing in mid to late September. For 15yrs I’ve rolled the dice with friends and prayed for some surf in a place not well known for it’s waves, unless you REALLY know Maine in the fall.

My friends at Grain Surfboards have been throwing a party called the RE-EVOLUTION, a celebration of surfing, renewable resources in the surf industry, art, and friends. Every year myself and some friends that I see once a year show up and camp along the ocean, surf, eat over priced lobster rolls, and catch up on what we’ve missed over the last year.

This year the Atlantic has been insanely quiet, until this past week, so when we looked at the forecast we had to find some resemblence of stoke over 1-2ft and slightly offshore winds. Not ideal, but what are ya gonna do.

I showed up on Thursday night because I wanted some alone time at the campsite, sitting by the fire, and some mental reset moments. I got up to the beach and found a small low tide wave and surfed for about an hour. It was really far from being stellar so I got my fill and drove up to the campsite. I set up camp around 430pm and ran to the store for some food and necessities. By the time I got back it was pouring rain. So, I took my buffalo chicken pizza and Baxter brewing beer to the tent, and fell asleep at 7pm. Not what I had in mind, but I’m not gonna lie, the sound of the rain on the tent was pretty relaxing. It wasn’t too cold so I was pretty comfortable.
It rained all night, finally ending around 4am. I woke up to the sound of an owl someplace around me. My campsite was at the edge of a river so it was super peaceful. The fog had rolled in off of the ocean and the light of the sun was soft and warm.

I made myself some coffee, eggs, and turkey sausage. I sat by the fire and dried out. Everything was soaking wet, but thankfully I had some common sense and put the tarp over the firewood so it would burn in the morning.

After I packed up my site I made my way over to the beach and found a fun waist high wave. I surfed for a while until Jon and Max showed up, they drove up from Jersey and Brooklyn that morning. In the past 14 of the 15yrs I’ve done the same, but, man, it’s hard to drive at 3am for 6hrs.
We surfed for a while until it was time to set up our next camp down the street. We’ve been camping in this same spot for all of these years. We’re typically the only site of tents in a land of super expensive RV’s.

After setting up camp we surfed again. Little did we know it would be our last surf of the weekend.

See, that’s the thing with surfing. You are not guaranteed anything. No waves, great waves. Possibly bad weather, possibly great weather. We’ve had some absolutely insane surf at this exact spot and we’ve seen it look like a sheet of glass without a ripple to be seen. This year, there was barely a ripple and the wind was giving it only texture from arrival to departure. Not enough wind to make a rideable wave.

We went to the Grain festival and saw some friends. We drank some beers and we left. We did what we needed to do. We hung out and were just present. There were some great surf artists and some super innovative brands showing off their sustainable surf goods.
We decided to get out of there and jump off the bridge into the cold York river. Some good fun where we needed to have it.

Sunday morning we woke up to more of the same. No waves, beautiful sunrise, but rain threatening from the west. We grabbed breakfast and packed up before it got too bad.

An east coast surf trip is not the most ideal situation, but friends and camping are never a bad idea. I’ve learned that it just takes some patience and creativity. Ive crossed my fingers already for better waves and nice weather next year.

Cheers to the future and a return of the real East Coast fall.