We’re in the dog days now, those languid summer months of soaking wet air and dust-dry wax plastered to our love sticks. The days of twenty-four seven pumpin’ AC, not pumpin’ surf. (Not that we could really call this passed winter ‘pumping’.) Beach bods boast post-season beer guts, and though everyone loves boardshort fun in the sun, everyone hates masses of silly kooks and groms—free of their classroom confines till August–that will inevitably crowd the line up at the first wavelet signs of swell. Damn these days. Barbeques and tank tops and the 4th of July. All we can do is pray for a swirling behemoth to loft a few hundred miles off our ostentatious coastline, sparing us destruction and spoiling us rotten. It happens. Irene happened.
It’s not all all-for-not. We have airplanes, time machines if you take them to the right far-away destinations. My girlfriend told me of a place she visited in the South Pacific where the local grommets went kid-crazy touching the condensation-laden Coca-Cola can she happened to be sipping. They laughed and hollered and were amazed at the simple sensation of cold.
So you don’t have the time, money, wherewithal, quiver to get to the secluded South Pacific. Puerto Rico’s right there. Literally. Bam. Hour-and-a-bit and you’re deep in a see-through blue Aguadilla tube. If not, you’re on the north coast where waves come flopping ashore even with nothing particularly interesting on the forecast. It’s another country entirely. Kind of. You don’t need a passport to get there, but it helps to know Spanish. It’s consistent. It’s not Indo, but it’s consistent.
There’s Indo…
California offers pretty much everything you could ask for. The waves are there throughout summer—even though locals will bitch and complain about the lack thereof. But as a Floridian on a left-coast mission, you’ll be pretty content with three footers rolling in clean, trust me. And even if it is flat, it’s California. But don’t book too soon and screw up. I missed the best Irene had to offer because I was in Newport… and it was surfless (by their standards).
And, of course there’s Costa. Pristine and beautiful and saturated by generations of flocking surfers sniffing out more than just waves. It’s tapped, they say. I heard now it’s soooo crowded. Everyone goes there, brah. So many people going there and hating how crowded it is that they’re not going back. So many people it’s not even crowded anymore.
Whatever happens, wherever you go, whatever you do, be optimistic and don’t waste it. Don’t go anywhere, even your local beach, just for the waves or the girls (or the boys, or the… non-descript) or the food or culture or experience… go because of all of these things all encompassed. Not so much the nondescript, but you catch my drift. Laugh when you wipe out—and don’t stop when summer ends. Use this period of flat-lined swell lines and hot, hot days to remind yourself of how good we have it when we have it good. Remember Irene? Of course you do, I mentioned her three times already. I here she has a sister—coming our way soon. Don’t drop the ball, though.
We here at RFRCTN have dropped the ball, and we’re sorry. We’ve been more or less stagnant. Truth is, we’re using the previous and expected down time to stoke up and get accomplished what we can. We’ve got plans, big ones, some in progress, some still shapeless blobs of half-imagination molding in the proverbial distance, like shapeless bumps on the horizon. So keep your eyes peeled and stay dialed.
Sincerely,
Refraction Editorial Staff
