cape hatteras lighthouse

December Storm

December 22, 2009 by busbey · Leave a Comment

This is the same storm that brought all the snow to the NE on the weekend of Dec 19/20. After raining and blowing up to 55 out of the SE on Friday night you can see the weekend started out with pretty stormy surf on Saturday morning, unlike everywhere else on the east coast the weather was actually pretty nice for about an hour.

The surf was a mess but it was light wind and sunny skies. About mid morning it started blowing offshore and by 11 it was really starting to kick in out of the NW at about 25-35 with higher gusts. Sound tide got on the road in Avon again and they close the road at S-Curves also. A couple of people paddled out but it was too much wind and swell still. We watched for a while and a few short shoulders were caught and that was about it. The swell dropped a bit and it became more manageable but there were very few rides. Occasionally a good one was had. I watched someone try to paddle into one and their board got ripped out of their hands by the wind and was spinning in the air like a top.

A very peaky shifty swell from several directions. Someone brought out some jet skis and they did some tow ins allowing people to get into the wave early enough to get behind the peak for a barrel which was pretty impressive to see. Jeff and I paddled out between the jetties, the wind was slightly more manageable there and it wasn’t breaking out quite so far. It wasn’t as big as behind the motels but we were able to get more rides. We were amazed when getting in the water as it easily had to be close to 70 degrees. Unheard of for Dec. and with the Air temps around 40 with a 25-40 mph wind it made it bearable as the wind just cut right through you. Swell came up pretty strong out of the north this am and the water temps plummeted overnight to the coldest of the season.

My guess would be about 52 degrees. What a temperature change in about 12 hours. Jeff said as he was going out of Hatteras inlet this am the water temp was 45 degrees. If you got lucky today there was a good one to be had but there was a mega current out of the north and a lot of close outs. There was a lot of denial paddle outs and most everyone lasted for just a few waves before getting tired of the battle. On Monday morning there was still a strong swell coming in out of the north and the water temps dropped even more hitting our first day in the upper 40′s. It might have been 50 but it was a cold 50 with the air temps only reaching a high of 42 with a cold NW wind still blowing. The tide was too high all morning making for strange conditions with the good wave if you got in the right place at the right time.

For about 45 minutes in the early afternoon at mid tide it was good , lining up nicely with a current you could almost keep up with. But then the tide dropped and the current increased rapidly and even though there was the occasional great wave it was really hard to find. As I’m finishing this up on Tuesday the swell is all but gone.

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, cape hatteras surfing, December storm surf, Hatteras surf, hatteras surf movie

A Sad Goodbye to July

August 4, 2009 by busbey · Leave a Comment

Early morning at the jetty

We’ve had a pretty good run of surf here this summer. I wish I had some more pics of the better days but Daniel was one of the “surf sacrifices” for the first swell of the summer. The 24th of June produced a nice NE swell with clean conditions and the early morning had a few overhead sets with light offshores.

The day before my son Hyatt was working on his car and stuck his hand in the fan blade requiring seven stitches in the pinky finger. Daniel was out surfing early that morning and was caught inside on a larger set . Someone was outside taking off to late , and as Daniel did his duck dive the nose of the pearling board pierced his foot requiring stitches and left a nice bruise.

Todd up at OBBC took a nose to the leg , more stitches and we had all the makings of a surf sacrifice. Small rideable waves followed the rest of the week if you played the tides and the wind and on Monday the 6th of July there was a choppy swell on the south side with a pretty stiff SW wind that picked up [Read more...]

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: Brett Barley, buxton, cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, Daniel Pullen photograhy, frisco, July surf, lighthouse jetties, Preston Barley, South Side

Joey’s New Red Fish

July 4, 2009 by busbey · 1 Comment

Hey this board is not red, it’s green. It’s a surf shot of Joey Crum on his old green fish. We built this one for Joey about 5 years ago and last year he finally retired it “last” summer. Many hours were logged on the green fish and it has seen all sizes of waves and all conditions. Some days it was well overhead and closing out, not a fish type wave at all but Joey would take it out and still surf it well.

If you have been to Hatteras any time in the past 5 years and there was a swell of some kind you probably saw Joey out on his green fish. Joey rides short boards also but likes his fish designs done old school. The green one was glassed with all 6 0z glass , Green resin tint, cut laps, glass on twins, gloss and polish – the works. I think he rode it so much that it had been delaminated twice and repaired twice gaining weight each time and it was never a “Super Light” to begin with. Last summer he ordered a new fish and this one was to be a little different than the old green one. This one had the old school nose but a modern tail with a tri fin, not a twin like fish usually are done. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: buxton, cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, classic surfboards, custom surfboard, handmade fins, Joey Crum, lighthouse jetties, old school fish, Surfboard pinlines

Crystal Clear Outerbanks

June 21, 2009 by busbey · 2 Comments

Yeah, I know this is supposed to be about surfing but there hasn’t been much this month and the water has been crystal clear. This is a very rare occurrence on the Outer Banks and I wanted to share these pics with everyone.

After the last post, the water has stayed clear for almost 2 weeks. There has been a couple of small SE swells pop up , bringing in the gulf-stream with few fun waves to go with them. On Saturday the 6th a front passed through early in the morning and there was some swell to be had on the south side. All the surf reports predicted waves this day so there were quite a few people down. There were some shoulder high sets but the wind came up with a lot of east and killed it but then backed off in the early afternoon for a bit before picking up again.

The next day there were no predicted waves and the waves were about chest to shoulder, fairly clean with decent winds. The swell increased during the day peaking early afternoon. The water was crystal clear and looking at the waves in the morning the color looked like I was in the tropics. No swell was predicted so there was no one around. I surfed early with one other person and did a second go out by myself. Even the bath house ( one of the more popular spots and has a decent sandbar now) only had about 3 people out.

The following week had little waves and you could get a surf in for an hour or 2 if you played the tides right but the real story is how many days the water stayed clear. Everyone forgot about surfing and was snorkeling, diving and spearfishing. Frisco was clear, all the north side was clear, I heard all the way up into Pea Island was clear. Enjoy the pics, taken at the first jetty.

All pics courtesy of Daniel Pullen

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: buxton, cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, Daniel Pullen photograhy, lighthouse jetties, lighthouse jetty pics, outer banks, outer banks surf report, underwater pics, underwater surf photography

May : Surf From Above and Below

June 1, 2009 by busbey · 1 Comment

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 [Read more...]

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: buxton, cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, lighthouse jetties, outer banks, ship wrecks, surf log, underwater surf photography

April Surf Report

May 4, 2009 by busbey · Leave a Comment

photos taken by Robbie Johnson. To see more pics of the same day check out http://www.surfcarolinamagazine.com/photos.html

April, 2009 would be the best month of surf so far this year, but it was still up and down, surf and water temps. Started out with some South west winds blowing in warmer water which was a relief since it had been so cold this winter. On the 3rd of April it blew hard SW all day building a swell about head high. The wind went offshore hard about an hour before dark and there were a few fun waves to be had but I’m sure it got better during the night sometime. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: buxton, cape hatteras lighthouse, matt lusk photograhy, outer banks, surf carolina magazine

It’s Getting Warmer

April 8, 2009 by busbey · Leave a Comment

Matt Munden - photo R. Johnson

Since the last time I posted on March 16th we’ve had two pretty big lows form off the coast creating really large swells. Wednesday March 18th and Thursday March 26th the surf was really big and breaking way outside on the outer bar. The strange thing was both of them grew in size rapidly without a NE wind which is rare for around here.

These kind of swells aren’t really rideable and you have to wait for it to calm down for it to get rideable. It took a while for the first one to clean up as we were plagued with bad NE winds for several days even as the swell dropped. It finally cleaned up enough to get rideable on Sunday afternoon on the 22nd but the wind came offshore for a few hours on Monday morning the 23rd and there was some nice cleam waves about head high. It only lasted a few hours and by 11 am the wind had come back up NE pretty hard. Those couple of hours the waves were the best I’ve seen in a while. The morning and evening of the 26th the road was closed in Rodanthe on the high tides due to ocean over-wash.

As the sea calmed down the wind would come up out of the south again creating a cross chop with a mixed up swell. A couple of souls paddled out in the mess between rain squalls on Friday the 27th in the afternoon Joey and Matt (slotted here) picked a few off as evidenced by the photo of Matt Munden, but believe me they took a beating in 49 degree water to get a few. The southerly winds killed it and the swell dropped quickly. Since then we have gotten into this pattern of lots of SW winds so the water has warmed up quickly. Sunday the 29th, Friday the 3rd and Monday the 6th the wind has switched from the SSW to West right at dark and blew really hard all night long knocking down what little swell the SW winds had picked up.

Although each time the day after there was a small but rideable offshore day and each time the wind has blown the SW the water gets warmer. We hit 60 degrees on the north side yesterday with 65 on the south side and they are catching drum on the point. It is blowing SW again and it’s supposed to blow west again tomorrow, so the pattern continues.

- Scott

Filed Under: Surf Log · Tagged With: cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, natural art, northeast swell, outer banks, rodanthe