GOOD MORNING, GOOD AFTERNOON,
AND GOODNIGHT
IRENE Phlogging
The 2011 Hurricane Season With Dick “Mez” Meseroll Words and photos by Dick “Mez” Meseroll
It takes a certain kind of fool to want to
leave a bird in the hand scenario — Sebastian Inlet as rote and boringly
predictable as that might be — to chase and Photoblog a borderline
Category 3 Hurricane Irene swell for ESM to… Georgia? Part fool for sure, but in the case of Bryan Hewitson and myself,
also equal parts gamblers, adventurers, road dogs, and curiosity seekers who
are always wondering what the possibilities might be somewhere out of bounds
while also not afraid to lose out to those whims once in awhile.
In fact, I once talked a then 16-year-old grom
Hewy (and Ben Bourgeois and Jon Rose) into chasing a hurricane up into Eastern
Canada by giving him very few details except the promise of a unique adventure,
cold water, and some sweet pointbreaks that would require 5/4-mil wetsuits and
5-mil booties. He didn’t even flinch and jumped onboard in about a New York
minute to go someplace new, damn the waves or lack thereof.
For Bryan a large measure of surf trips is the
adventure that goes along with it — new friends made, firsthand intel
gathered for future trips, and the agony and ecstasy of waves gained or lost.
In other words, we’re kindred souls. Which is exactly why I called him first
for this season’s inaugural EasternSurf.com Hurricane Phlog, almost 20 years after that first trip together to Canada. And,
not surprisingly, he jumped on board without barely giving it thought or
needing much persuasion, which is more than I can say for several other less
adventurous souls contacted.
So we left on our journey to Georgia early
Friday morning by going… south? It was Hewy’s practical idea to get some waves
under our belts and in the camera so he talked me into a recon mission down
along the Treasure Coast to a place I knew not much about, which is always
intriguing, especially after he described the board and neck-breaking type of
waves that sounded more like Pea Island and less like any place south of
Spanish House.
And he was not bullshitting — check the
photos and see. That’s all I’m going to say about that place, except I think
Bryan made a very wise decision not to put his body or one of his two prized
Quiet Flights on the line for some mutant-looking waves that were just a hair
over getting too low tide to challenge. I never thought I was going to end up
shooting Irene at Sebastian Inlet Friday, but the winds were still not right up
north so we decided to make hay while the swell was kinda sorta almost but not
really pumping at a place where we both should have our own parking stalls
reserved for the amount of time we both spend working there.
It was probably the move that cost us a shot at
getting the shots somewhere in Georgia, but we nailed a few building block
images for this Phlog with no regrets — chasing hurricane swells are very
fluid situations and the Inlet was fun enough with a bevy of surfers killing
the mediocre waves along with a cadre of photogs that included Chris “Dirty”
Wilson (he already has a reserved parking spot by nature of basically living at
Sebastian Inlet), our esteemed Photo Editor Nate Adams, along with special
guest appearances by former ESM Photo
Editors Ryan Gamma and Jimmy Wilson, which was worth the stopover alone to get
a chance to hug them both and catch up a bit on all our respective
hectic lives. Having all four of our photo editors on the beach at once
shooting a hurricane swell together gave me a huge amount of pride, especially
since they all have evolved into A-list shooters on their own after leaving our
humble hallways, which makes every minute of blood, sweat, and tears so worth
it, especially when I see another one of their amazing images in print or
posted on the web.
By 1:00 p.m. it was one and done and we
beelined north on I-95 hoping to nail an on-dark session near the Florida/Georgia
state line with our sights set on a Saturday dawn patrol in the Peach State
arriving with an hour and half of good light at another eye-opening beachbreak
setup I never heard of that has some frickin’ amazing potential. And that’s all
I’m going to say about this place as well. Some wave locales should just stay
off the general surfing public’s radar, and, as far as I’m concerned, this is
another one of them.
I’d love to give you a fairytale ending here, but
chasing Irene did not end in our favor with a pot of photographic gold for me
and a cover shot for Hewy. Hurricane Irene’s waves, probably in the
six-foot-plus wave face range all day Friday, said goodnight Georgia on Friday
evening’s falling tide only to leave us clean, glassy, even pretty looking
little scraps of G.I. Joe leftovers at first light Saturday morning while North
Carolina was getting lit up and not in a good way. We were about two tide
changes too late, but neither one of us could muster up a bitch session
considering the historic beating family, friends, and business associates were
copping at the exact same time we sipped our morning coffee watching the docile
three-footers dribble in on a beautiful, calm Southern morning.
And seriously, we just didn’t give a shit
because we had a hell of a unique adventure start to finish, something we both
live for because it’s not always about catching the best waves — if
you’re lucky enough to be able to say that and actually act on it. We witnessed
some mind-blowing setups, got some good pics, talked story, and laughed our
asses off feeling like we still accomplished something on our 36-hour road trip
if not just to strengthen an over two-decade-long friendship, which was plenty
good enough reason to roll the dice for me.
That and we know more about the potential of
several different places we never would have gotten knowledge of by staying at
home doing the same ol’ same ol’.
A LOT more. And I certainly plan on putting it
to good use when opportunity knocks again, because the 2011 Hurricane Season is
just peaking after all.
17th Annual Quiksilver King Of The Peak Set
To Go Down In Solid Northeast Swell Conditions On November 6th-7th By
Nick McGregor; Captions by Dick “Mez” Meseroll READ MORE…
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