Surfing in Interesting Climes: Small
B lock Island, Summer '99
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Beautiful blue green water and barely knee high.
Although surf magazines and movies portray surfing as a summer sport, on the east coast of the US it's kind of a late summer, fall, winter, and spring sport. There just isn't much in the way of waves in the summer months. There is an answer to this summer surfer's dilemma. You need to raise the size of your board and lower the size of your expectations.
July 12, 1999 Rhode Island trip day 3; took the ferry to Block Isand in the morning and got a full outdoor workout. Block Isand is the only place I've been where cars don't own the road. Bikes abound, and the cars seen to hang behind them non aggressively. You can hog the shoulder and no driver will even honk. It was relaxing and empowering; New York and its brutal speed-at-all-costs drivers were far away.
My surf travel companion Rob Cummings, aka Barney, was testing his bike trailer contraption for his upcoming surf world tour. It worked well. My heavy board was rolling along behind his bike instead of killing my shoulder, so that was a good change.
Barney's rig for his European tour.
We took some reconnaisance on bluffs and beaches, scrambling over smooth grey and white rocks. At one point we saw some hazy brown objects on the beach in the distance and realized they were nudists.
At the south bluff near the lighthouse we had spotted some tiny waves. We headed back that way and decided to surf at Mohegan Bluff just west of the lighthouse.
Overlook at Mohegan Bluffs.
All we had to do was get down the ciffs to them. Black's Beach in San Diego has a notoriously hard descent, and this was its east coast counterpart. I glissaded on my butt and got down with my bag and returned for our boards. We were totally dusty and filthy after the climb down.
Of course as soon as we got away from the cliffs and could look at them at a distance we saw the stairs a hundred yards down the shore. We were definitely ready to hit the water. It was plenty hot and several bathers were in the obvious surf spot, right on the beach. We suited up and hit the waves breaking right between a set of rocks.
Avoiding sunburn in kooky surf cap.
Photo by Rob Cummings.
Real tiny waves, but beautiful. Glassy, blue breaking over somewhat unfriendly rocks. I tried my cross stepping and kept getting scared as the rocks came underfoot in a black mass visible through the clear green. A few potential dings were avoided because the rocks were coated with sea weed.
I got a laugh at Rob's technique of lying on the board as a means of bringing beach furniture out into the cooling undulating swell.
Taking a surfboard hammock nap.
On the way back we took the stairs we'd seen, and I realized it was still a hell of a climb. I sweated carrying my bisect bag. It was the heaviest it's ever felt.
Lugging heavy board bag up endless stairs at Mohegan Bluffs.
Photo by Rob Cummings.
