May : Surf From Above and Below

May which is usually a good month for surf let us down this year. If you were into windsurfing or kiteboarding it was the month to be here. Warming temps and sideshore winds. The first 9 days of the month the wind blew SW at least 15-25 if not more. There was some rideable days of surf when it would get just enough west to clean up some of the sideshore mess but they were mosty desperation go outs. Then there was a few days of NE wind chop, then a couple of days of SE wind chop and then 2 more days of SW winds followed by 3 days of NE wind 25-35 finally calming down some on the 21st.

The thursday and friday before Memorial day there was some fun waist to shoulder high days in Frisco.  The strange thing was all of a sudden the water went back down to the low 60′s after flirting with 70 degrees all month.  All the sideshore winds all month have worked to dig a pretty good trench down the beach on the north side destroying most of the sand bars but for some reason there is a plethora of sand bars on the south side. It is very rare that that the south side has better sand bars than the north side. There wasn’t a lot of surf for the holiday crowd but there was finally some great weather and there was some small rideable waves.

On the 27th a low formed off to the south east overnight which was later called the first tropical disturbance of the season but with water temps in the 60′s it is hard to think of it as tropical. There was actually 2 small lows that formed if you looked at a radar map. This made for very unorganized conditions but at least there was some punch to the swell. One of the lows at one point was almost centered right on top of us and the other was about 200-300 miles to the SE.

That afternoon the surf and wind was all over the place but about 3 in the afternoon it went from wind chop to sheet glass in about an hour. For an hour or so there was some pretty juicy, shifty peaks in the head high to a little overhead range. As mixed up as the swell was so were the water temps. It was one of those days that during the paddle out the water temps would change along the way. Some areas were as low as 60 and you would be freezing and then 5 strokes later you would hit a patch of 68 and it would feel great. But it didn’t take long for the wind to come back up again as the low pulled off to the NE.

The next morning left us with an inconsistent small swell mostly about waist to chest high greatly enhanced by the clarity of the water. Early off the water was so Caribbean clear and as you rode the wave you could see every grain of sand shifting on the bottom as you rode along and you could look right through the wave with the back light of the sun coming up in the morning. As the wind picked up the water got a little cloudy but it was still just a nice day to be out surfing.

Daniel went out and took some shots of the jetty from under the water and the clear skies with light wind reminded me of the day last May that I had the opportunity to go flying with Dwight Burrus and get some shots of the jetties from above. As you can see buy the pics there is not a lot of jetty left and there is some pretty nasty stuff underneath the water. Be careful paddling around and between the pieces that are left standing. If you ding your board that is ok we can fix it but some people have suffered some pretty nasty gashes. unfortunately Daniel got out a little late as the water had started to cloud up but some cool shots nontheless.  (water shots courtesy of Daniel Pullen)  ( Air pics courtesy of Don Bowers)