One Kook's Safari with Bill Barlow
One Kook's Safari > Find joy in the waves, or wherever you can
Last Updated on Thursday, May 23, 2013 04:03 pm Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, May 23, 2013 03:52 pm
It’s remarkably easy to be drowned by the mundane.
Most things are mundane, right? That’s sort of the point.
What’s more, even your favorite tasks will, in the course of time, lose some of their intensity.
Believe it or not, even the glamorous world of weekly newspapers can at times seem a bit of a drag. When James Thurber responded to what someone else described as the drudgery of his time at newspapers in Columbus, New York and Paris, he wrote: “I suppose that even the most pleasurable of imaginable occupations, that of batting baseballs through the windows of the RCA Building, would pall a little as the days ran on.”
Fast forward 70 years, and it seems as though ennui and cynicism have seeped into our souls, that not only every task, but even our recreation seems to bore us beyond words. Isn’t that sort of the essence of cool? The absence of heat – the certainty that no matter what is happening, we’ve seen it before, and we’re not particularly impressed.
Read more: One Kook's Safari > Find joy in the waves, or wherever you can
Surf forecast > Small but clean surf expected for Memorial Day weekend
Last Updated on Thursday, May 23, 2013 04:02 pm Written by Staff Reports Thursday, May 23, 2013 03:00 pm
A strong high-pressure system has been spinning off the coast for the last several days, driving up warm, moist air and steady south-to-southwest winds that are expected to continue through the day on Friday with wave heights in the 3- to 4-foot zone.
A frontal boundary is expected to pass through overnight Friday, resulting in north-to-northwest winds Saturday and northwest winds Sunday. The surf will be on the decline over the weekend, with standout beaches picking up 2- to 3-foot waves and Saturday being the bigger of the two days. Monday through Thursday next week, background southeast swell energy and wave heights in the 2-foot zone are predicted.
Look for the water temperature to drop some with the southwest-northwest upwelling; earlier in the week it was around 57 degrees. Expect water temperatures in the low 50s through the holiday weekend.
For details and updates see the forecast tab at surferssupplies.com and follow on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.
Courtesy of Andrew Funk of Surfers Supplies
One Kook's Safari > These are not last year’s beaches
Last Updated on Friday, May 10, 2013 10:51 am Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, May 09, 2013 01:50 pm
For some folks, it takes time to make up after a big fight.
Imagine there is somebody dear to you, someone who has always been there. Your relationship hasn’t always been perfect, sure, you’ve both done things to hurt each other, but there have been plenty of good times, year after year, one fun time after another. This friend has taught you things your entire life, brought joy in the good times and solace when you needed it most.
Then one day, this friend comes over and trashes your house.
Next time you see her, are you going to be ready to play?
After our first surf session after Sandy tore through the Jersey Shore, my wife, Karen, described it as finally making up with the ocean.
Read more: One Kook's Safari > These are not last year’s beaches
One Kook's Safari > How thick is your wetsuit?
Last Updated on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 12:55 pm Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, October 04, 2012 04:00 pm
My fellow surfers, each of us has a difficult decision before us.
It won’t be easy. Every option has its drawbacks, and there is no perfect solution. Well, not unless you have a lot more money and time than I do.
Do we keep surfing, adding more and more neoprene as the water temperatures drop, or at some point, maybe when it gets to about 48 degrees, do we hang up the board and wait for spring?
I have tried both.
Last year, it was relatively easy. The temperatures just never got that cold. If you forgot to turn off the outside shower, you weren’t going to then have to replace the cracked, frozen pipe, and while you wouldn’t want to paddle out in just a bathing suit, it wasn’t much of a hardship to get in on a sunny day, even if you weren’t a polar bear.
One Kook's Safari>Who’s that presidential surfer?
Last Updated on Wednesday, October 03, 2012 09:03 am Written by Bill Barlow Tuesday, October 02, 2012 12:22 pm
There were a few strong waves here and there this week, and nice ones if you stayed away from where they were closing out, because they closed out hard, and that’s just never fun. It is also officially fall, and we got our first blast of really cool air, although the water stayed relatively warm.
Read more: One Kook's Safari>Who’s that presidential surfer?
One Kook's Safari>Leslie is ready to throw some waves around
Last Updated on Tuesday, February 12, 2013 04:40 pm Written by Bill Barlow Friday, September 07, 2012 02:07 pm
Big is a relative idea.
Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense to say “That’s a big bug” or “What a little car.”
So trying to figure out what amounts to a big wave depends strongly on where you are and who is doing the talking. Mid-summer in Cape May County, a 3- or 4-foot wave amounts to a monster, but when there are people surfing 78-foot waves, it’s hard to claim anything on the East Coast as big. Tow-in riders are looking for 20 feet or better, and all over the world, there are breaks with consistent, rideable waves at 40 feet tall. That counts as a big house.
Read more: One Kook's Safari>Leslie is ready to throw some waves around
Minimalist ride: Catching a wave without a board
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, August 03, 2012 03:55 pm
Coming to Ocean City in the 1970s, I had a pretty clear idea of what ‘cool’ meant.
Cool was a cherry red Trans Am. Dark aviators were cool, as were very loud T-shirts and expensive sneakers that were an accepted brand name: Adidas were cool, while despite my mom’s frustrated assurances that they were exactly the same, ‘Adios’ sneakers were very far from cool.
Star Wars? Immensely cool. It’s hard to get across how cool Star Wars was.
And on the beach, coolness was a frayed, beat-up pair of cutoffs – you had better have cut them yourself from a pair of jeans that were getting too worn out – and body surfing a wave.
One Kook's Safari > A day at the beach, and much more
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, July 27, 2012 06:24 pm
Brendan Borek’s high school class, Wildwood Catholic 1992, just held its 20th reunion.
We can only guess what Brendan would have done for his 40th birthday this year.
Maybe he would have wanted a beach party, like his last birthday 22 years ago. But at this point, he could have been anywhere in the world, doing almost anything.
It’s a safe bet he would be surrounded by friends. I never met Brendan, never saw him surf, but I have talked to people who did, and they describe a great kid with a boundless appetite for life.
Read more: One Kook's Safari > A day at the beach, and much more
One Kook's Safari > If you can’t catch a wave, capture the moment
Last Updated on Friday, July 20, 2012 04:22 pm Written by Bill Barlow Friday, July 20, 2012 04:45 pm
There were some waves out there this week.
In true kook style, I'm writing this with a headache after getting knocked by my board Thursday morning. I tried to duck a wave, and I naturally assumed the board washed behind me. Instead, it was waiting for my head to come up to give me a polite, whitewater-powered tap.
There were also some good rides to be had, and I suspect they only improved as the tide changed. The hot spots looked packed, and the sets seemed about stomach high, maybe a couple coming in bigger. When I actually managed to catch a wave, it was a nice, long, smooth ride.
Several forecasts are calling for the swell to build this weekend, but it looks like it might be a lot messier as well.
Read more: One Kook's Safari > If you can’t catch a wave, capture the moment
One Kook's Safari > The rides wouldn’t be the same without the wait
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, July 13, 2012 06:27 pm
Surfing mostly consists of waiting.
That’s not the whole story, of course. There is also looking for waves, lugging your board around, paddling out; once in a while you even catch a ride.
On a good day, in an hour’s session, you might get several rides of maybe 10 seconds each. A 30-second ride is epic.
And people say not much happens in baseball.
Surf magazines, movies, even local columns often give the impression that surfing is mostly made up of time gliding on a wave or getting air above one. The occasional tedium of surf travel is romanticized, but once you hit the water, the image is of nonstop action.
Compare it to a football fan watching only the highlight reel.
Read more: One Kook's Safari > The rides wouldn’t be the same without the wait
More Articles...
- One Kook's Safari > Is saying ‘obsessive surfer’ redundant?
- One Kook's Safari > Locals take first and second at kite surf contest
- One Kook's Safari > Surfing Day seeks to share the stoke
- One Kook's Safari > Did we descend from marine mammals?
- One Kook's Safari > Welcome summer, welcome warmth, welcome waves
- One Kook's Safari > Shed the neoprene and shred
- One Kook's Safari > The ocean is deeper than our emotions
- Lessons taken from the (surf) board of education
- Start peeling back that neoprene, but not too fast
- Does anything go as planned?
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