SUN 9/26, 3 PM REPORT:
Flat. Dead, lake, bathtub flat. Hot. Pelicans doing laps. Don't come over. Go to the movies.
|
DON'T CALL ME.
Seriously. For eight years my phone has rung at 6 in the morning with somebody on the mainland asking "is it breaking?"
Not anymore. Now you look.
I'm Rodolfo Noonan. I'm 24, I grew up in Melbourne, and I've surfed since I was eleven. I'm a line cook at a seafood place
here in Cocoa Beach, which means I work nights and surf mornings, which is the way God intended it. I rent the top floor of an
old two-story beach house on the ocean side of A1A, and in April I taped a little ball camera inside my east window. It looks
right over the dune and down the crossover at the break. A used computer I bought off a buddy sends a new frame every two minutes
from first light until dark.
Kevin and Bradley in Cocoa and Brian in Rockledge: this is for you. Check it BEFORE you drive over the causeway. Mrs. Winchell,
my landlady downstairs, thinks it's a security camera. It kind of is. It's securing my sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HOW TO READ THE FRAME
- Look at the water past the shorebreak. If you see clean lines stacked up coming in, parallel to the beach, that's swell. Get in the car.
- Whitecaps all over = onshore wind. Even if there's size, it's going to be choppy junk. Maybe wait for the evening glass-off.
- Smooth and shiny = glassy, no wind, or an offshore. That's what you want.
- Count the sets. Watch a few frames. If a set shows up every frame or two, it's consistent. If you see flat water for ten minutes, it's long waits.
- Where's it breaking? On the lower tide the outside bar works and you'll see white water way out. On the high tide it backs off and it's all shorebreak.
- Use the crossover for scale. The rail is about waist high on me, and I'm 5'10". The shorebreak in the frame always looks smaller than it is. Add a foot.
- People on the beach in the water standing up = flat. People sitting on boards out back = something's happening.
THE BEST FRAME OF THE SUMMER
Wednesday, August 25, 7:14 AM. Glassy, waist high, clean, peeling, swell from a hurricane way out in the
Atlantic. Three guys out. I was at work at 6 for a breakfast party. I saved the frame so I could look at what I missed.
That's probably Kevin, Bradley and Brian out there, but at that distance I can't swear to it, and they all say it was them.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
SURF WORDS, FOR MOM
My mom, Lucinda, checks the cam from her office in Melbourne and then calls me to ask what it means. Mom, this is for you. (Love you.)
| Glassy | No wind. The water looks like glass. The best. |
| Onshore | Wind blowing from the ocean onto the beach. Choppy, messy, junky. Here that's an east wind. |
| Offshore | Wind blowing from the land out to sea. It holds the waves up so they break clean. Here that's a west wind. We pray for west wind. |
| Closeout | The whole wave breaks at once instead of peeling along. Nowhere to go. Usually ends with me underwater. |
| Peeling | The wave breaks a little at a time, along its length, so you can ride it sideways. The good kind. |
| Set | Waves come in groups. A set is a group of the bigger ones. In between is a lull. |
| Out back | Past where the waves break, where you sit and wait. |
| Groundswell | Swell from a storm far away. Long, clean, powerful lines with long waits between. |
| How big? | We measure on the body. Ankle-high, knee-high, waist-high, chest-high, head-high, overhead. Ankle = don't bother. Waist = fun. Overhead = Mom, don't watch. |
THE STINGRAY SHUFFLE
This time of year there are stingrays lying in the sand in the shallows, especially when it's warm and flat. They're not out to
get you. They're just lying there, and if you step right on one, it'll whip its tail and stick you, and it hurts like nothing
else. So when you wade out, shuffle your feet. Slide them along the bottom instead of stepping. The ray feels you coming
and swims off. Looks dumb. Works. If you do get stuck, hot water, as hot as you can stand, and go see somebody.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEPTEMBER LOG
| 9/1 WED | Knee high, onshore, junk. |
| 9/2 THU | Flat. |
| 9/3 FRI | Knee to thigh, glassy at dawn. Longboard, 45 minutes before work. Worth it. |
| 9/4 SAT | Labor Day weekend. Waist-high bump, onshore by 9, and about four hundred tourists. |
| 9/5 SUN | Smaller, more tourists. |
| 9/6 MON | Flat. Worked a double. |
| 9/7 TUE | Flat. |
| 9/8 WED | Ankle. Swam. |
| 9/9 THU | Knee high and sloppy. |
| 9/10 FRI | Small. Everybody watching the hurricane out past the islands on TV. Its name is Floyd. |
| 9/11 SAT | Small. Floyd getting bigger. Everybody at work talking about whether it's coming here. |
| 9/12 SUN | Starting to feel it. Waist high, long period, but onshore and lumpy. |
| 9/13 MON | Bigger and uglier. Shoulder-high closeouts, wind howling. Lines at every gas station on the island. Everybody buying water and plywood. |
| 9/14 TUE | EVACUATION. Brevard County told everybody on the beaches to get out, so I got out. Unplugged the camera, put the computer in the closet, helped Mrs. Winchell with her shutters, and drove across the causeway to Mom's with what looked like half the county. The cam went dark. |
| 9/15 WED | At Mom's. Floyd went by in the night about a hundred miles offshore. Thank God. Wind, rain, the power flickered. Watched the TV crews standing on the beach in the rain. I would have given anything to see the waves. Not anything. But a lot. |
| 9/16 THU | Back on the island. House fine, Mrs. Winchell's fine, camera back up. Still big but a total mess, a brown wall of closeouts, and the lifeguards weren't letting anybody near it. Missed the whole swell. The only pictures I have of it are the ones in the paper. |
| 9/17 FRI | Waist high, onshore, mush. Beach full of seaweed and junk from the storm. |
| 9/18 SAT | Knee-high leftovers, glassy at dawn. Fun on the log. |
| 9/19 SUN | Flat. |
| 9/20 MON | Groundswell! Long clean lines, everybody says from another hurricane way out in the middle of the Atlantic. Chest-high sets, long waits, light offshore at dawn. Got two hours. Best session since August. |
| 9/21 TUE | Still chest high on the sets, wind came up by 10. Went out anyway. |
| 9/22 WED | Waist high, fading. |
| 9/23 THU | Knee. |
| 9/24 FRI | Knee, onshore. |
| 9/25 SAT | Ankle. Glassy. Swam out to the bar and back. Shuffled. |
| 9/26 SUN | FLAT. Hot. Pelicans. See frame. Don't call me. |
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
THE FINE PRINT
- If the picture hasn't changed in a while, either my computer froze or the phone line dropped. I fix it when I get home from work, which is around midnight. So, tomorrow.
- Nobody in the frames is wearing a wetsuit because it's Florida and the water's about 80 degrees. Come January, different story.
- The cam doesn't show the inside bar to the south. Trust me, if it's good there it's good here.
- I don't give out the address. You know where Cocoa Beach is. Find your own crossover.
|
GeoCities.us
» Pipeline » Break
THE COCOA BEACH SURFCAM
