CRAPTACULAR ADVENTURES!(With Apologies To Jerry Ricciotti) Phlogging The 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season With Tom Dugan And Dick “Mez” Meseroll Words and photos by Dick “Mez” Meseroll
At first, I was feeling frustrated and not all
too happy as Hurricane Danielle made her way up from the bottom of the North
Atlantic last week (seems like ages ago, does it not?).
I knew exactly where I wanted to go park it for ESM — (way) up north —
but could not get a crew together thanks to the 48th Annual East Coast Surfing
Championships in Virginia Beach, VA, sucking up all the East Coast talent from
under me like Sasha Grey on the set of her next feature… and I don't mean an
episode of “Entourage” if you're getting my drift.
The good news was my partner in publishing of
20 years, Tom "Scoop” Dugan, had an early birthday present from his super
sweetheart Mimi, who wanted to go back to visit their hometown back in Long
Island so she could get some family time in and he could document all the
Danielle action and enjoy the tail-end of a New York summer.
No brainer there.
In the meantime, I quickly resigned myself to
my fate being “stuck” in Florida and decided I would stay positive, hit whatever
came our way as hard as possible, and get the best goods I could for you the
readers of Eastern Surf Magazine and www.EasternSurf.com.
In other words, take the skirt off, no whining,
and just attempt to do some sucking up myself. I know Tom would be doing
exactly that, so it was easy to switch over to game face mode and git ‘er done
no matter the talent, place or conditions.
Of course, discovering that Bryan Hewitson,
Baron Knowlton, Ryan Briggs, and Eddie Guilbeau also had to stick around
Florida for varying reasons — kids (Hewy), weddings (BK), school (Eddie
G.), film festival (Briggsy) — well, let's just say I wasn't un-stoked to
have these guys to take aim, frame, and shoot at all day, even if it was
pre-determined that we would have super craptacular conditions throughout this
swell (non) event.
And the number one rule I based my Danielle
game plan on? Do not attempt to board The Crazy Train, so DO NOT watch The
Weather Channel at all, period. Do not check Surfline (it wasn't that hard
deciding to not ring up East Coast Surfline forecaster Mike Watson so he could
tell me it was going to suck badly), Swell.com, Magic Seaweed, or any other
surf blog, surf site, or TV weather forecast of any kind for the duration.
That, along with the always-important credos of
no phone calls other than with the people I'm trying to shoot, no texting, and keep
Facebooking to a bare minimum (entertainment purposes only) put the “The Less I
Know, The Better I Feel" theory (thanks Mark Hill!) in full effect
throughout the weekend.
Yep, this hurricane wave-filled weekend would
be a Froth Free Zone and, as far as the other lads were concerned, it suited
them just fine as well.
I would just ride my bike up to the end of the
street, coffee and cell in hand at 5:30 a.m., call Hewy and BK with my surf
report, which was, basically, “Hey, it really sucks again, let’s start shooting
as soon as possible.”
So fuck it — it was time to try and
make chicken soup out of chicken shit, as my good friend and fellow photog
Jason Murray likes to say.
Oh, and even one of ESM’s best shooters and all-around pain in the asses (but in a good
way), the master of ball-busting Chris “Dirty" Wilson, was far away up in
the mountains of North Carolina, so I knew for what it was worth (not much
really) that I had crappy-as-can-be Brevard County on lockdown and —
bonus!!! — I would not have to undergo the usual barrage of insults/
chop-busting about this, that, and the other thing from Dirty.
Of course he just did it through Facebook, so I
guess that point was rendered moot. But, honestly, I love it, and, truth be
told, it's always way funnier to get a verbal hosing from Wilson in person
anyways, so hurry back Chris! Sometime around mid-October would be about right
I'm thinking…
But I digress, which is oft times the nature of
a blog, or, in this case, a Phlog (photo blog)… so let's get back on point
before we let the photography tell the rest of the story.
A quick recap then: stuck in Florida. Check.
Almost none of the usual suspects present. Check. Medium to
almost-kinda-sorta-but-not-really large set waves now and again. Check. Onshore
winds 8 to 10 to 15 mph, occasionally gusting higher. Check. Some really
sweet rain/ thunderstorms scudding in off the Atlantic soaking the camera gear.
Check. Hours spent on the beach attempting to obtain a handful of presentable
images documenting the plight of the Florida surfer during a weekend of “The
Danielle Swell”… well, umm, you decide here and now if that was the case
— see the comments box below.
In all honesty though, getting to hang out and
shoot with Baron (worth the price of admission alone) and Hewy, two guys I've
been shooting since their gromhood, more or less alone, plus two super stylish
kids with serious bags of teched out moves in local phenom Eddie G. and North Florida Wunderkind
Briggsy?
Shee-it yo, it coulda been a whole hell of a
lot worse and that is for sure.
And, with big thanks to the smiling faces and
positive attitudes of the great blokes I got to hang and shoot with, I found
out once again that sometimes it's the journey and not the end result that
counts.
And I counted the
Danielle experience as a very good one — craptacular waves and all.
Stay tuned this
week for further www.EasternSurf.com coverage of Hurricane Danielle
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