The Earth is Flat

...and so is the Atlantic. I hate flat spells. It takes me out of my rhythm of checking forecasts, thinking about surfing and basically rearranging my day's schedule around getting in the water. The longer the days go by without waves, the more I start catching myself forgetting these things. Some days, it gets to be pretty late in the day and I realize I haven't given getting in the water that much thought. That's when things have gotten really bad.

Here's a shot of the lake that's parked right next to Cooperstown NY. I figured it'd be appropriate in honor of lake Atlantic.

Aqua-Zombies

Saturday morning was calling for waist to shoulder high and clean. With the amount of swell we had in the past few days beforehand, I was expecting good conditions. I started checking spots and wasn't finding anything exciting. Another confused swell that made for closeouts at better spots and smaller stuff at others. Granted, the timing of the tides sucked, but as I drove around, I saw a lot of other cars scrambling as well. It was like a bunch of crackheads not able to get their morning fix, driving, checking spots, and going to a new spot in disbelief and in hopes of better conditions.
I finally settled on some closeouts at seventh street. Paddle, take-off, tuck into the closeout, get wrecked. Being that I hadn't been out in a week or two, it was a lot more fun than it should have been. There was the usual SUP'er at 8th street and I had initially thought about joining him, but quickly was glad that I decided against it. No sooner did I paddle out on the other side of the jetty, but four longboarders paddled out at eighth, creating an insta-crowd. Two more guys showed up just as I was leaving to add to the heavy traffic. (I headed back to grab a picture of 8th above)

The conditions weren't great and dealing with a crowd for a couple closeouts seems ridiculous. Still, with the weather and swell, everyone was just crossing their fingers and hoping that things would turn around. Speaking of turning around, I'm sure once the tide turned mid-day, things were a lot better, but I have yet to see pictures proving otherwise. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around, seeing as I was headed up to the Lehigh Valley for the night.