Gas Chambers & Manglito

So what did mere mortals do during the peak onslaught of the big swell? Well, Jason and I certainly spent many hours watching the big waves from the beach and we also looked for places where the swell was a little more manageable. We found a couple spots in Rincon and Aguadilla where it usually never broke, but during this epic swell all kinds of remote coastal nooks and crannies were lighting up. These spots didn't take the full brunt of the swell since some of them were almost completely blocked from the North/Northeast direction of the swell, or the wrap that did make it to those spots was much tamer. So ironically, during the biggest days of the swell, Jason and I probably surfed the smallest waves, but once the swell started to taper off, we were able to emerge from our ratholes and charge the spots that were previously unrideable.

Some of the coolest (and most photogenic) spots we checked out were Gas Chambers and Manglito next to Crashboat Beach. These two breaks are very similar in that they break very close to shore against rocky cliffs and that they are both very hollow tube-like waves. They are fickle though, meaning they only break on a few occasions each year, when a swell is both big enough and comes from the right direction. The lineups for the waves were extremely crowded, and dominated by boogey boards in a ratio of about 2:1 to surfers. With these kind of waves, it's all about getting barreled, shacked, pitted, tubed (I'm sure there's plenty of other synonyms for the word). And it seems like these waves are more conducive (and less hazardous) to the bodyboarders. Especially considering that there were often rebound waves coming through here: these are waves that had crashed, had hit the rocky shoreline and were now heading back towards the lineup where the surfers were on their waves - quite a few times we saw people on a wave when a rebound wave came in and violently smacked them off of it.

In fact, after watching these waves for a while, I was quite excited about trying my luck at the Wishing Well break close by. It looked a little bit smaller and slightly slower than Gas Chambers and Manglito and at the time I was psyched about surfing anything that looked less than double overhead big.

Now let me explain something about the characteristics of waves, because none of them ever seem to be EXACTLY the same.. but in Puerto Rico, although the waves are quite a bit bigger than your average US East Coast beach break, they tend to be slightly more forgiving. This can be seen in the way most waves in Puerto Rico sort of crumble over, and then peel to one side. This makes the wave easy to get into, and easy to stay on - allowing the surfer time and space to adjust. However, it does require the surfer to paddle harder and push himself into the wave. On the East Coast of the US the wave usually pitches enough to push you in, and then just tumbles over all at once into a close out with very little open face to ride. So back to these barreling waves in Puerto Rico, of which Wishing Wells that I was about to surf is one. They jack up extremely quick, break close to the shore, are extremely glassy and clean and are as fast as greased lightning.

So I drop into my first wave and get wiped out pretty quick. I need to turn down the line as soon as possible I tell myself in preparation for my second attempt. I drop in again but I didn't calculate the angle just right as I am high up on the wave where the lip picks me up off my board and slams me down on the flat glassy water below. Faceplant... hard! It literally felt like getting an extremely forceful open handed slap on the side of my grill.. quite jarring. I shake off the cobwebs, get back in the lineup and try to settle down. "Get the angle right, don't stay too high on the wave" I tell myself. Drop in number 3: I really don't remember what I did that time, but I sure remember the final result.. faceplant! Smacked again. So after that, with my tail between my legs, I paddled out of that situation. I can still remember the awesome view of the glassy tube in front of me, like looking down the barrel of a big gun (and when ridden properly, the surfer looks like a bullet going through it). Cool wave, but it allows no room for error, and I still make a ton of 'em. I can totally see how (good) surfers get all excited about these waves, because it's all adrenalin right from the get go. No moves, no waiting for the wave, just screaming through a tube at top speed like a bat out of hell.


This is what Gas Chambers looks like in between sets... not only do you have to worry about trying to catch this freight train of a wave and trying to emerge unscathed.. but you also gotta look out for the 50 other guys out there trying to do the same thing!


Surfer at Manglito making it look oh so easy, in the right place at the exact right time.


Busy picture? Let's see whats happening here starting from the right: Surfer dropped in too deep and is about to get cleaned out by whitewater. Bodyboarder looks like he has this wave dialed and may actually make it out, while the water-borne photographer is getting ready to snap a great picture.

Revisiting the Big Swell

First off, let me apologize for being a slacker as far as updating the blog. But to be honest, I am frequently surprised at how busy I can get even when I'm unemployed. Checking different spots for waves and surfing them takes up a considerable amount of time! Anyhow, I did want to share some more thoughts about the big swell we had here about 10 days ago now.

It was in the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 18th that the first forerunners of the swell started hitting the island. My friend Jason and I were chomping at the bit to see what kind of waves would be rolling in. So we headed to Maria's in Rincon where we were joined by about 80 of our closest surfing buddies in the water. The conditions were good, offshore wind blowing and the sets were building ranging in size from about 1 ft to 3ft overhead. Now those are some pretty big freakin waves but I had been out in similar conditions once before so that helped relax me a little bit. Another thing which I learned to do is not look backwards at the wave right before it breaks - or let me rephrase - at least you shouldn't think about it rationally as it is swells up behind you. Any rational thought would tell you to freak out, panic or release your bowels. So no, I didn't do any of those, but instead just worked on timing, paddling hard and catching some of these beasts. And when you do catch one, holy cow, what a feeling! The drop, the speed, the bottom turn as you go back up the face of it and the push the wave keeps giving you - awesome!!! I was able to catch about 3 or 4 waves and after my last one, I just rode the whitewater back to the beach. And on the way in, I saw a $5 bill floating in the water which I grabbed - as if to pound into my head with the subtlety of a sledgehammer - this was your lucky day!!!


As bright and inspiring as Tuesday night was, Wednesday morning was dark and gloomy. The true size of the swell had really filled in and its menace was accentuated by the overcast skies. Outside my front yard, huge 25 foot waves were churning, in a pretty chaotic manner looking extremely gnarly and nasty. But sure enough, there were a couple heads bobbing out there by the main break about 150 - 200 yards out. You couldn't have paid me $5000 to go out in that stuff, so I tried to ponder what made these guys go out there? As Jason explained to me, these guys are "chargers". Chargers are surfers who will "charge" any wave they see, regardless of how big and nasty it looks, or whether they have ever surfed the break before. Chargers are inebriated in self confidence of their surfing abilities, desire to conquer new challenges - or as Jason speculated about the guys out in the water this morning "maybe they just smoked too much weed".

So as we were watching this scene, I picked out this head that was bobbing up out of the water every few seconds. Was it a bodyboarder? Or maybe some lunatic who went in there to swim or bodysurf? No way, this guy looked like he was in trouble. Jason and I ran down the beach to keep up with him, not really sure what we could do to help since we couldn't go into the water very far ourselves without getting into the same mess. But we followed him down a few hundred yards to where he finally washed up onto the beach. Like a scene out of a movie, he stumbled onto the beach and collapsed. We dragged him a little farther from the ocean and after about 2 minutes of gasping, he finally told us how his leash snapped and that he was caught on the inside (the area where the wave breaks) and couldn't get out. So he tried to swim parallel with the beach for a little bit, while constantly getting hammered and held down by huge waves. "I thought I was gonna die, bro" this young American charger repeatedly muttered. There was blood all over his arms and legs which were lacerated in various locations as a result of multiple collisions with the reef.

Jason and I decided to head to Rincon to look for some smaller protected spots that we might be able to surf. While we were there we rode by Tres Palmas, which was looking super huge but not super organized. Tons of onlookers were onhand and I remember seeing another surfer on the side of the road who had an abrasion/laceration about the size of a dartboard on his back. After all the nastiness I had seen earlier in the morning, I was happy to find refuge at some spots in Aguadilla that were "merely" head high.

Here are some more pictures that I took:

A (kamikaze) surfer drops into a huge wave at Tres Palmas.

Maria's in Rincon can't handle the size of the swell.

Tres Palmas...

Yes, I have spent several hours during the past few days looking at this wave in Rincon. It is absolutely spectacular and can hold the biggest swells in the island (and possibly this entire side of the Atlantic Ocean)

Check out the link below for some pictures: First off, you'll see a ton of local Bodyboarders at Crashboat Beach in Aguadilla. Then the monstrous wave you see is Tres Palmas, looking about quadruple or quintuple overhead. The surfers who are on the wave have obviously been towed into the wave by Jetski as one can see how early they have gotten into the wave. Even though they rode slightly smaller waves, the guys who paddled in may have been even more impressive, as they had to drop all the way from the top.. absolutely amazing stuff.

http://www.surfpr.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3375

And if you're still interested, this is another excellent link with pictures of the tow in surfers at Tres Palmas.
http://www.playero.com/main/LoadWhatsUp.do?id=448

My front yard... going off!!!

Look what I woke up to this morning... the beach in my front yard was going off on the second day of the North swell hitting the island right now. It is the largest swell in a decade and has been nothing short of spectacular. On this morning, the waves were a bit cleaner than yesterday, and about 6 guys, including pro surfing brothers Graves and Toth went out in the water. They paddled into waves with about 20 foot faces, at least triple overhead. Freaking amazing. These pictures, and my crappy zoom, really can not do it justice, although I want to thank my landlord for letting me snap them from the roof of the house.

Tupi Cabrera, some photographers and videographers check out the scene before a larger crowd began to gather.

Zoom in on this, and you'll see one surfer paddling for the wave as another two bob over the top and to safety before it breaks.

Make sure to click on this photo to enlarge it, and then magnify in on the surfer riding the wave, you can then appreciate some of the size.

If you magnify on this one, you'll see a guy dropping in on a wave, unfortunately, the electrical line seems to block a better view of him.

Calm before the Storm?

Here is a view of nice tranquil Caribbean waters which lie south of Rincon heading towards Mayaguez.
Last week was definitely exciting, as I hosted a ton of visitors. First of all there was Carlos and Sarah coming in to visit for a week from Columbia, SC and New Orleans respectively. They stayed in Rincon but we hung out together pretty much every day, exploring various surf breaks, waterfalls and newly opened restaurants like the Taco Maker. During the middle of the week, my new friend Matt Cox came into town from San Juan to do a job interview and then headed directly to the beach with us (while still wearing his suit) to join us in the water on a bodyboard. Later that night we headed to Mayaguez to feast at the Ponderosa and clean out the Mayaquez Resort and Casino. Carlos and I walked out with earnings of around $20 each!!!

On Friday, Papus, Carolyn and Kobe stayed in Rincon and joined us for dinner/drinks at the Tamboo beachfront grill. They were my Salsa gurus and I hadn't seen them since they relocated to Knoxville, TN about 9 months ago, so catching up was fun. Then on Friday night/Saturday morning, Joel and Megan from St. Petersburg, FL flew into Aguadilla and we spent the next two days exploring and surfing various breaks. Saturday we hit the North Coast by Isabela surfing Jobos and Middles. On Sunday, we took a look at Rincon breaks like Domes and Maria's which were very small. Luckily, we salvaged the day with a terrific late afternoon session at Wilderness up in Aguadilla. I think I had the longest ride of my life there, independently verified and described by Joel as being around 30 seconds long and covering around 150 yards.

There were lots of people coming in and out of my apartment, so I could definitely understand when my landlord Eloy asked me "Exactly how many people do you have staying in your apartment?" I explained the topsy turvy situation and reassured him that this kind of traffic won't be happening again. Joel is coming back for his second straight weekend this Friday again and then my Mom will be coming to stay with me the week before I leave on April 8th.

But all the buzz around the island now is about the swell of the DECADE which is going to peak on Wednesday and Thursday. They are saying it will be the biggest waves to hit the island since 1999. Most of the beaches will be closed since it will be so gigantic. My plan is to search for more protected/shielded and smaller spots since I don't want to have anything to do with the 20-30 foot waves (triple to quadruple overhead - yes, you will be able to fit four surfers standing up on a surfboard underneath the open faces of these waves!!!) The swell is starting to build right now outside my apartment, only about 3-5 seas right now, but one can sense that these are the harbingers of the maelstrom that is about to pummel this island.

Here is a nice link with the surf forecasts for this region: http://www.surfline.com/surfline/forecasts4/forecast_mo.cfm?alias=puertorico&county=nwpuertorico

Hopefully I'll be able to post some good pictures on the blog after this weekend too.


Rocky, rolling on his back and having a ball.


Carlos and I tower above the waterfall.


Traffic cop: Only in Puerto Rico would it make sense to allow a mentally challenged individual to direct traffic.

Say "Hello" to Rocky!!!

After receiving various criticisms over my blog being too Feline-centric, I decided I should strive for a little more balance by showing you a picture of this friendly pooch waiting outside my door. His name is Rocky and he belongs to the landlords above and is a very friendly and well-behaved dog.

As for goings on.. just been doing a steady amount of surfing as my shoulder continues to recover. Never surfing too long and the surf hasn't been too big lately either which makes things easier. The one exception being a session up at Wilderness in Aguadilla on Friday morning. There was good size there - about head high - as well as very strong offshore winds which held the wave up for a long time. Unfortunately, it also makes it a lot more difficult to paddle into the wave, especially if you're riding a shortboard as I was (and also if you're still a big time surf rookie!). There was also a very strong current in the water, so once you reached the take off zone, you couldn't just catch your breath, you had to keep paddling continuously just to hold your position. So, in between that, and lots of aborted take offs ie. paddling like a madman to try and catch the wave while the offshore wind just holds it up and keeps it from breaking, I was pretty tired after about 2 hours. And most significantly, my shoulder was tight and swollen again.. dadgumit! Luckily a day of rest on Saturday, lots of ultrasound, stretching and some light easy days in Rincon have reduced the stiffness and swelling and I am feeling good again.

And politics, yeah, those have been in high gear around here the past few days.. and what was cute for the first day or two, has now become incredibly annoying. The candidates have been having rallies and parades, which they conduct through major streets and highways... they usually consist of tons of cars, tons of people drinking on the side of the roads, 4 Wheelers, ATVs, motorcycles, horn honking, tire squealing, engine revving, loud ass music and speakers, and traffic blockades. This was all just building into a crescendo for the actual Primary election which occurred yesterday on Sunday.

And Sunday was a special day alright as alcohol sales were banned on the island! Although there were no planned rallies on that day, people still gathered on the streets, especially in front of the campaign offices. And late on Sunday night, there was another traffic jam in Aguada as I was driving back home from Rincon. As I was sitting in my car, all of a sudden I see about a hundred kids just hauling ass down the street towards me.. a few seconds later, about 30 cops decked in Riot Gear in pursuit run by.. who knows what had beeng going down.. but as I sat there, I contemplated that for once I was actually grateful for the blandness and general apathy associated with politics back on the mainland....

Here, experience the excitement as my progress is once more ground to a halt as another political cluster--err I mean parade passes by.

Looking out my front yard, it's the US Coast Guard again. This time, it looks like they're keeping an eye on a snorkeler in the foreground.. that must be a hell of a swim from Santo Domingo!!

Someone else told me that they haven't gotten sick of the sunset pictures yet, so here's another attempt to actually push your tolerance for these pics over the limit.

No news is good news

Yes, haven't posted anything lately because I've actually been able to get out in the water and do some real surfing! A moderate sized NW swell hit the island this past weekend and I was finally able to get on it with my surfboards. All my rehabbing and the recent acquisition of a personal ultrasound machine have definitely helped me recover. I'm not at a 100% but I am vastly improved and continuing to convalesce.

So unfortunately, when I am shredding it up in the water, it is impossible for me to take any pictures... so may as well just send some new pictures of the sunset...