Opening Day

Caught on the cusp of Huey's attention shift, I look back and forth and ruminate on the approaching season and its opening.

Opening day of the fall/winter season, always one of the better days of the year to get in the water and surf, even if it's not really that good. Optimism runs high as we return to waters that we may not have entered in six months. Reunited with old faces unseen since last spring, and possibly some newly familiar ones from this summer's sessions at the south swell reefs and beaches. Even those of us blessed with a surf location that gets swell year round must be amping to feel the new rhythms setting in as a colder, wilder heart begins to beat.	All photos by Ben Weiss, taken on opening day, 10/26/1998. Thumbnails link to larger images.
Yet the air is still warm and the skies are still sunny. There is the promise of things to come. As we anticipate the building sets of that first swell we mirror our anticipation of the oncoming season. Will it be like last year? Will it be better? Memories flood the head and I spend most of my water time this day sitting and mindsurfing all those days, looking back and forward at once. Caught, on opening day, right between the great swells of the past and those to come, hopefully soon.
Looking back... 1998 October 25th 3 days of surf Overhead sets 1997 October 2nd 5 days of surf Overhead sets 1996 October 14th 3 days of surf Overhead sets 1995 November 16th 3 days of surf Overhead sets Looking forward... this bodes for an average season with 1998 opening right in the middle of the pack with size and duration on par with the rest of the past few years. On opening day alone 1997 stood out as an exceptional, and this was borne out by the rest of the year.
For me, opening day means a return to Rincon, my obsession that I share with thousands of others. But as Rincon opens, so does the Lane, Swami's, Mavericks, the South Bay, Baja Norte, and the whole North Shore. And everyone is on it. Even if we've been surfing and surfing hard all summer there seems a new eagerness to hit the water this day, at any cost. We can't miss it! So it is that opening day at Rincon is one of the most overcrowded and frustrating and yet still one of the better days of the year.
Anticipation and memory. Waves rumbling off the Indicator and down the point for hundreds of yards, but they're in the past, it's all in my head. But wait, there's the first pod of dolphins to cruise the length of the point in six months, right on a set that looks just like what I was thinking about. The first painful hobble across the cobble triggers flashbacks of cuts and scrapes on the barnacles. It all comes rushing back with the hope of more to come at once, and somehow in the midst of it all I find time to surf a few waves like I haven't seen since April.
It remains to be seen if this season will be as good as its opening, but I can hear the cold pulse of winter starting to throb on the beaches, and it's a beautiful sound.

Santa Barbara Surfing -- Last updated 10/27/98.