Coastalsurvey

Monday, March 18: Back from Florida. Caught some good waves before the swell died. Landed in Newark with two surfboards in a 10-foot-long blue bag. Took a bus to Manhattan and then got on the subway.

It was rush hour. At each stop more people got on the train, until they were packed in like toothpicks standing up in a box. A few commuters were eyeing the dirigible-like blue bag at their feet, but nobody said anything.

Began to sweat. There was no easy way to get the boards off the train. Finally made a little announcement: “Uh, I’m getting off at the next stop . . . and if you all just breathe in a little, I’ll try to get this thing out of here.” Thirty pairs of eyes stared back. Nobody said a word. The train stopped, the doors opened and the crowd, miraculously, parted.

“You get home safe now,” one lady called as the doors closed. The train pulled out and I climbed the stairs that led to the connecting train.

A woman screamed. A man turned to look at the platform where the sound came from then looked at me. Was she being stabbed, or just laughing? A second scream. She was in trouble. We hustled down the stairs to the platform and found two women, unharmed. One of them was pointing into the darkness of the tunnel beyond the platform.

“He took my bag, then ran in there,” said the woman with her arm raised.

I glanced at the two women, looked down at the surfboards dangling from my shoulder and then stared into the utter blackness of the tunnel.

“C’mon,” I said, “we’ll go find a cop.”

In the subway

Monday, April 1: Dreamed of paddling out over huge seas. The last wave of the oncoming set was twice as big as the others, a mountainous wall of cobalt-blue water. The wave broke hard, drove me down deep and held me there until my lungs burst. Woke up gasping.

Tuesday, April 16: Spring is late this year. Today was cool and rainy. There’s a storm off the coast: you can smell the salt on the south wind even in Brooklyn. Maybe good surf tomorrow?

Wednesday, April 17: Took the subway out to Rockaway with Scott. Made the eight-mile trip from apartment in Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach in Queens in an hour and a half. A new record.

There are better places to surf on the Atlantic seaboard, but none that can be reached for the price of a token. So you take what you get. Today we got slop.

There was a swell there, but it had been blown to hash by a strong west wind. The current was running east, and it was cold. Even wrapped in a quarter-inch thick wetsuit, 40-degree water is numbingly cold. Stayed in it for 45 minutes and caught two unremarkable waves.

Later we walked to Tom Sena’s surf shop to buy a new fin for an old board. There haven’t been many surfers in the shop over the winter, Sena said. “Except this guy, Herbie,” he added. “He’s hardcore; he was out here all winter long.” Sena gave us Herbie’s number and we took the subway home.

Tried calling Herbie that night. No answer.

Saturday April 27: Stood, amazed, on the boardwalk.

The storm that had moved offshore last night was pushing back a nice waist to shoulder-high swell and a steady breeze from the land shaped the waves into neatly breaking lines. It was a rare bit of perfection.

Paddled out to a peak west of the jetties and caught a series of quick roller-coaster rides. The water at Rockaway is sometimes gray or greenish brown, depending on the currents and the wind. On this day it was the color of coffee and cream. Found a rhythm in the coffee-colored waves and that loose, electric feeling you get from moving with them.

Stayed out for nearly two hours and caught a dozen good waves — that’s maybe 90 seconds of actually standing and riding. The rest of the time was spent paddling around and over incoming sets, sitting on the board and drifting, looking at the kids on the jetty and watching the jets belly in for their final approach to JFK.

A trio of surfers arrived in the late afternoon, but the tide was ebbing and the waves had lost their shape. The three surfers floundered around for about a half-hour and then paddled in.

Monday, April 29: Still no answer at Herbie’s. He must have given up on New York’s silly little waves and gone to Fiji.

Tuesday April 30: Another storm blew over. If the northwest wind holds, it could be epic tomorrow.

Headline in today’s Daily News: “Weird Life of a Psycho Surfer”. The story was about some loser in Tasmania who shot a whole bunch of people at a tourist resort with a small arsenal of automatic weapons. And the wanker was driving around in a car with a surfboard on the roof. Therefore, he’s a Psycho Surfer. If he had actually used that board, he would have been way too mellow to go around capping people.

Wednesday May 1: Woke up early and checked weather radio. The wind had shifted. It would have been pointless to go to the beach. Went back to sleep and dreamed of Fiji.

Sunday, May 5: Cinquo de Mayo. Drove out to see Andrew in Sag Harbor last night. It was dead still and a heavy fog was lying over the east end of Long Island. That evening we checked Bridgehampton beach. There was a nice swell there, but nothing for it to break on. The waves walled up and collapsed right on the beach.

The next morning I got Andrew up early, and we buzzed up to Montauk. First look, from one of the pullouts on the old Montauk highway, got me jazzed. Below the bluffs, a perfect little sandbar was working. Good as it was, we went further east.

The Ditch was crowded with longboarders and the beach looked like a young Rotarians’ picnic. Groovy young moms and little kids and dogs ran all over the sand. We decamped to another break west of the Ditch. It wasn’t as consistent, but we had it to ourselves.

Beautiful day: green water, probably around 50 degrees, sunshine, clean shoulder-high waves and just a whisper of offshore breeze. It was one of those days that stay with you for awhile.

Saturday, May 25: Up at 6 am. Rode my bike to a truck rental agency under the Williamsburg Bridge and rented the last vehicle left in NYC for the Memorial Day weekend. It was a beat-to-shit Ford Econoline van with a jammed side-door and a serious alignment problem. Threw the bike in the back, drove home, took the bike out, put surfboards and camping gear in and drove over to Heidi and Stevo’s place in Fort Greene (Brooklyn). Heidi, Stevo and their friend Alonso threw their gear in the van and off we went.

Five hours later we pulled into the Hither Hills campground near Montauk. The trip usually takes less than three hours, but the holiday traffic jammed Rt. 27 all the way to Amagansett. We were lucky enough to get a campsite and eased the van onto a patch of grass already crowded with tents and RVs. Once camp was set up, Stevo and Alonso took off on their mountain bikes while Heidi and I got back in the van for the short drive to the Ditch.

The wind was offshore and the waves were small, in the waist-high range. But there were still about 20 guys in the water at the Ditch. Heidi and I walked east along the cobblestone shore, looking for a less crowded break. There are good breaks up that way, but they all need a substantial swell to work. We turned around after about a quarter mile and walked back to Ditch Plains. The wind had shifted onshore and everyone left the water, so Heidi and I paddled out.

Heidi is just learning to surf. She’s got a good O’Neill wetsuit and terminal stoke. She stood up a couple of times that day.

Stopped in town on the way back from the beach and bought fresh fish for dinner. By the time the guys got back from their bike ride, I had a beer open and the sputnik (Weber barbecue grill) loaded with charcoal.

We sat up late that night, burning driftwood in the sputnik, drinking beers and telling stories. There were a lot of stars and chill in the air.

Sunday we all went to the beach and took turns with the three boards and wetsuits. The water temperature was still in the mid 50s. Alonso, who lives in the jungle on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula near Palenque, was determined try surfing, regardless of how cold the water was. Somehow he ended up wearing my crummy old wetsuit with the blown out seams. Alonso stayed in the water until his face was as blue as that old wetsuit.

Monday, Memorial Day, the Atlantic was as flat as a lake. We packed up the van and drove home.