When the Wind Blows...

I grew up in the suburban sprawl of a place called Scarborough, where strip malls and residential neighborhoods are joined by speeding highways.  Where concrete structures and fenced off properties play home to the rich and the poor, the black and the white, the lonely and the loved, and everything in between.  Interspersed with a few token parks and a strategic planting of trees, it is no nature lovers paradise.  Thousands of miles away from the closest ocean, it is the last place one would look to find a wave to surf.

It was mid-morning when I cruised down the steep hill towards the lake.  The cliffs that rise on both sides of the road serve as a gateway from the drab settings of the city suburbs into the hidden lake front area known as Bluffer's Park.  The sky was slightly overcast and the ground was wet from the storm that had raged overnight, the wind was still blowing with a force - it had to be if I was going to accomplish my goal.  I parked the VW and strolled along the path that led to the cove - a slightly sheltered nook along the shoreline where the waves were rumored to break well with the right wind.  As it came into view I could see that there were already a few surfers out in the water, bobbing around in what seemed to be non-surfable conditions.  For the first couple of minutes the waves were breaking small and close to the shore, there were not even any white caps on the water.  I nearly resigned myself to yet another day without surfing, to leaving the excitement of the water and heading back up into the cold grayness of the suburbs.  Then I saw a distinguishable bump forming in the distance and a long boarder paddling for it, it peaked and opened up into a clean head high face that he was able to ride for a good few seconds - more than enough to stoke any poor soul searching for waves on a lake.  I pulled out my phone and snapped a couple shots before running back to my car to gear up. 

I was anxious as a slipped on my 6mm hooded wetsuit, booties and gloves.  The windows for waves on the lakes are small, and I knew that if I didn't catch this one then I could be waiting for weeks if not months until the next favorable conditions presented themselves.  I jogged back over to the cove with board in hand and greeted a fellow lake surfer as he was leaving the water.  I waded waist high into the water and as I hopped on my fish and started paddling, the board sank into the water a little more than I was used to -the diminished buoyancy of the freshwater adding a new dynamic to the activity.  I relaxed as I flowed through the water, that feeling of impending waves calming my mind and body.  I paddled into a few before catching a wave successfully, having to adjust my style for the freshwater.  As I finally caught a clean right, cutting up on the face a couple of times as I flew down the line, I was awed at what I was doing.  I paddled back out and sat on my board staring at the horizon of this massive lake, my mind coming to grips with the irony of the situation.  I had been traveling the world searching for waves, uncertain if I would ever call Toronto my home again, and now here I was on the shoreline of my suburban youth, surfing.

Surfing New York...

I arrived home sunday night still shaking, unsure if the surf trip that I just undertook was real.  Living in Toronto I'm constantly told by people here that I'm crazy when I say I'm going surfing, whether it be on a lake or on the ocean.  Everyone else was heading to the cottage for the weekend, but I was heading to New York city to surf the climax of hurricane Katia.

It was almost never meant to be.  We left at 10pm on thursday with the intent of arriving for an early morning surf on Long Island, but as we pulled up to the border and handed over our passports the guard gave us a strange look and we knew something was wrong.  It was the tenth anniversary of 9/11 after all, security was high, so when the guard asked my surfing companion why he was trying to cross the border with a women's passport, we both thought we were done for.  He had quickly grabbed his wife's passport, no doubt the thought of impending waves clouding his mind, and he never even looked at it.  Yet the surf gods were smiling on us that night, and whether that border guard was a surfer or not, he felt our stoke being ripped out of us and decided to let us pass with just a drivers license.

We drove long and hard and crossed the George Washington bridge as the sun was rising, the sky line of NYC shined bright orange as we headed into Manhattan.  The roads were still clear but we were lost, with no GPS we were trying to do things the traditional way with a map, but rush hour was approaching and we had to get to Long Island.  After about a half hour of driving aimlessly we picked up a detailed map of the city and found our way out of downtown.

We pulled into Long Beach and parked our car close to the water.  We could smell the salt and hear the ocean breaking, this was the moment we were waiting for.  We were both on zero sleep and stiff from the car ride, we quickly strolled over to the sand and were both blown away by what we saw.  Glassy 6-8 foot waves peeling across the entire beach, often barreling, and the peak of the wave shooting a mist back towards the ocean from the light offshore breeze.  The conditions were absolutely perfect.

We ran back to the car and geared up, it was already getting warm so we put on our 2mm shorties, later realizing that board shorts would have sufficed.  With boards in hand we entered the water - I only needed to half submerse myself in the saltiness to have that euphoric feeling return to me, I had been without surf for far too many months.  The waves were powerful as was the current that accompanied them, and we were constantly pulled down the beach at a fast pace.  Our sleepless bodies took a beating those first few hours, but we couldn't have been happier, and we dropped into waves like it was the last time we would ever surf.  We both needed a break so we got out around noon and decided to go check out the Quiksilver surf competition.

Thousands of New Yorkers came out

Kelly Slater doing a bottom turn

We had heard about this competition only after deciding to take our trip, and I couldn't have imagined it to be such an incredible spectacle.  As it turned out, we showed up at the competition right as the finals were taking place - between Kelly Slater and Owen Wright.  The beach was packed with thousands of people, it was the first professional competition that New York had ever hosted.  The waves were getting even better as I found a little view point, I looked to the outside and saw someone drop in on a perfect wave and I could tell immediately by the gracefulness of the bottom turn and snap back on the peak of the wave that I was watching none other than Kelly Slater himself, surfing the same waves that I had just gotten out of.  He went on to lose the final to the Australian Owen Wright, but he was a great sport about it, he had already won ten world titles after all.  And even in his losing effort I was able to witness some of the best surfing I had ever seen in my life, I was blown away.

Owen Wright in a winning effort

Celebrating

After some lunch and a short nap under the boardwalk, we got back into the water mid-afternoon.  It was crowded now, hundreds of people were in the water, and the current was so strong that we had to constantly walk back up the beach.  I was finally getting the hang of my new board though - I had never rode a fish before and it was all I had for this trip.  The waves were incredible all day long, it was hard to believe that such perfection would be the result of a hurricane thousands of miles out to sea.  We were graced by Katia, occasionally a wave would peak and as the offshore breeze sprayed it back a small rainbow would be visible in the mist, arcing down like a colourful wave in the opposite direction.

We slept at my uncle's home on long island, and went for a morning surf the next day in what was left of the swell.  Later in the day we headed into the city and joined my New York family and friends for a festive night in Manhattan.  There was reason to celebrate.  After years of living on the ocean and surfing everyday, I had spent the last five months land-locked in Toronto, unsure if I was going to survive in this city where I grew up.  But this surf trip proved that with determination anything can happen, and I finally felt that maybe I could make my life work as a surfer living in Toronto.