2008-12-11

FUN Winter Wavesailing at Coquina Beach!

This afternoon, warm SSE winds blew across the OBX and the Oregon Inlet meter hovered in the mid-20s mph! I was psyched to catch a "local" wave session at Coquina Beach just south of Nags Head and about 10 min from my house. As compared to the typical 45 min drive to wavesail in Avon. Interestingly, Coquina was breaking chest high on the sets and set up for perfect side shore DTL wavesailing. The outer bar was firing about 100 yards offshore and made for plenty of space to gather jump/loop speed! I threw a FWD with every run out and worked on the delayed-type given airtime from the steep ramps.

The DTL waveriding was awesome, especially following low tide around 12:30 pm. I caught some of my best waves this year with lots of big lip hits and floaters. 3 to 4 bottom turns was the norm on the bigger set waves. Tons of fun!! Water temp was surprisingly warm and hovered in the upper 50s with air hitting near 70 degrees. I started my session around 2:00 pm and sailed until dark. Dano joined me about an hour before sunset, after I came in a few times to make calls to the crew reporting conditions.

No photos since there was nothing really spectacular to shoot as I was solo on the water. Skies were gray and it looked like typical overcast Hatteras conditions. However, the surf set up was very nice with waves breaking on the far outer bar.

If you are familiar with primo Hatteras wavesailing conditions, you can likely picture what it was like. Perfect chest+ high crumbly SE swell set waves on the outer bar, peeling right with steep sections for deep hits. Very easy to see the outside swells and turn into the set. Powered 5.3m wind kept the water relatively chop free, especially in the wave zone.

All in all, a great session for December!