Hurricane Danielle at OIB

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. A beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine?

Hurricane Danielle passed east of Bermuda but delivered some awesome surf at Ocean Isle Beach (OIB). It is south facing so not a bad spot for any NE wind that leads the way when storms come close. The east facing beaches like CB and WB tend to get blown out pretty bad with any on shore or side shore wind so I think it was definitely the right call.

Friday Leah and I hit the water tower south of the OIB pier for a warm up day. The surf was a little bumpy but you could score some fun short rides to get the sea legs. Later the wind turn a little side on and I rigged the 4.7 on the 10'5" SUP. What a blast! Easy surf so no problem getting out but soooo fun ripping one little wave after another. I even made some friends with the local surfers who were stoked on the wave sailing. I met David and his son from SC- very cool long boarders. His son was catching waves tail first and spinning on the face like LH on the SUP. Very nice.

Saturday morning swell from Danielle was building in nicely. I took the 7'4" surf board up to Island Breeze since Leah and Jennifer would be coming later. It was dumping pretty bad there so after an hour or so I headed back to the water tower and ran into David again. After David introduced me to Dan Myers and his crowd from Charlotte I ended up surfing with them the rest of the weekend. Dan and his son Jason were on C4 SUPs and Jace was even doing head stands on his 9 footer. Everyone was hollering and having a fine time with the glassy shoulder to head high rollers coming in! I'm glad I met Dan and David- all the surfers in the family made the scene one of the best vibes I've experienced.

Sunday morning was the highlight for Danielle's visit. The wind finally turned off shore and pretty much stayed off to side off up until about 1pm. I found a little honey hole way up the beach away from most of the line ups and was killing it on the 10'5". I had dolphin and porpoise come in close in the surf while I was there. I love seeing them- just feels like having pets around or something. Most importantly it was one DTL ride after another and banking off the closeout section. I stayed out until I was completely dehydrated and came in with a huge smile after lunch time.

Jennifer, Leah and I headed back for a nice outro sesh early Monday. It was knee high with occasional waist high swell so very relaxing after Sat & Sun when it was a little too big for the ladies. Perfect SUP surf conditions with off shore wind and glassy clean water. I think I've lost my 10'5" for good now since Leah used it all day. She was really getting the feel for catching and riding the waves since she was having so much fun she stayed out for 2 straight hours without even taking in water! Yep. She has the bug.

* Jennifer once again blew me away with some great photos with the point and shoot. Too bad the camera settings were screwed up Saturday and Sunday. Kinda fuzzy.