After much anticipation Hurricane Danielle did not disappoint in the category of wave generation. It stayed well out in the Atlantic and then stalled south of Greenland sending the New England coast several days worth of clean and punchy long period groundswell. I didn’t get too many pictures because all my free time was spent in the water surfing and body surfing with a newly completed hand plane. The morning of Tuesday August 31st I scored the best surf session I’ve had in a long time with tons of long rides on glassy head high walls connecting blissful top to bottom turns the whole way.
Now, all eyes are on Hurricane Earl which formed on the heals of Danielle but has taken a path much much closer to land and is threatening a close brush with New England. As I write this a Hurricane watch is in effect for Massachusetts and a tropical storm warning for Maine and New Hampshire. We will likely see heavy rain and at least gale force winds along the coast on Saturday. And of course, (as I’ve commented on before) for the last couple of days a lot of real news has landed on the cutting room floor in order to make more air time for the weather forecast, and no doubt all the local news channel “Storm Teams” are getting their parkas ready for the big event.
This newest hand plane is smaller and lighter than my last, making it easier to swim with and to maneuver in the wave, but provides less lift off the face. It also has a lot more rocker in the the nose so it doesn’t pearl as easily and yields a smoother gliding sensation. The strap is made from an old Splaff belt of mine which is made from a spent bicycle inner tube so it is twice reused.
Splaff is owned and operated by a friend of mine named Cliff Drill in San Diego. Cliff started making sandals from recycled inner tubes and tires in his garage at Higgins Beach (right near where the above photos were taken and where I’ve been riding this hand plane) way back in 1997. He later moved to Ocean Beach and branched out into belts and handbags. I think he’ll be proud to see the last belt he sold me being used in this manner.
The waves have picked up and it doesn’t look like they are going down anytime soon. We are currently in the midst of an out-of-season Nor’easter which is keeping things interesting right now, and there are a couple of tropical systems poised to send us some swell later this week and into the weekend. I just hope my strength and my wife’s patience can last for the duration.
The clouds broke this morning as this particular system stalled offshore. But the sky is already growing dark again as it tries to advance toward land again.
Outlook for this weekend. Not written in stone but entirely possible.
Check the September issue of Maine Magazine for a feature by Chelsea Holden Baker with photos by yours truly about the oil trade in Portland Harbor. It was a great assignment - the most fun photography job I’ve had so far. Here are some of my favorite images which didn’t make the edit…
I just got back to work after six glorious (but non consecutive) days off. We took two mini vacations in state and had some really good times. The first was at a camp on Randall Pond in Parsonsfield near the NH border and the second was in the Pemaquid Point area.
For anyone reading this from outside of the State of Maine the word “camp” is a regional term used to describe any small dwelling situated on a parcel of land in a rural setting. They are typically used mainly as a vacation spot, seasonal getaway, or for shelter while pursuing game. The camp we visited was on a small pond at the foot of 1200 ft tall Randall Mountain. It was a super quiet and very clean/natural setting. The only access was by a dirt road off of a back road off of another back road off of a rural route. So there was zero road noise, and in three days and nights camping I didn’t see or hear one airplane. The only sounds were that of the bullfrogs, crickets, and the occasional cry of a loon. We swam, fished, paddled, cooked, made smores, and relaxed.
Randall Pond, Parsonsfield, Maine
Large Mouth Bass - A Keeper
Large Mouth Bass Remains
Pemaquid Point is in the midcoast region just downeast from Boothbay Harbor. It is home to the famous Pemaquid Point Lighthouse and the port of New Harbor. My brother in law and his fiance rented a house which is owned by the couple who lives next door and is part of a thirty five acre spread which includes fields of wild flowers, pristine forest, and at least a few hundred yards of ocean frontage on which they have a great little boat house stocked with a canoe, kayaks, and an inflatable with a small outboard. Our stay up there involved a little more driving around from place to place than was required at the camp, but it is one of those places where around every turn is a postcard view and there is no such thing as being in a rush, so I didn’t mind.
Wild Blueberry Cobbler at the Pemaquid Lobster Co-op fish shack. Sadly I didn’t take a picture of my Haddock sandwich before demolishing it. The thing had an entire fried fillet - the most fish I’ve ever seen on a single roll.
Monday morning, local landmark Red’s Dairy Freeze was torn down, months after sustaining what must have been pretty severe structural damage in an early spring electrical fire. It was a sad day indeed. The good news is that reconstruction is already underway. I just hope the new design maintains some of the charm that the old one held and doesn’t turn out to looking like some modern prefab piece of garbage like so many new commercial buildings these days.
Last weekend we went to see The Black Keys at Bank of America Pavillion on the Boston Waterfront. I’d never been to the newly spruced up waterfront section of Boston and I’ve never seen this band, so it was a whole new experience.
I haven’t been to too many live shows lately, but have seen a fair amount of bands in my lifetime. And I can say for sure that The Black Keys are one of the hardest working bands out there. They played their hearts out and truly rocked the entire time. There is nothing worse than going to a show where the band is obviously just going through the motions. This was the opposite.
The Black Keys is a two piece group and if you closed your eyes you would swear there were four or five people up there. The skill and energy they bring to their performances is nothing short of amazing. Seeing something like that inspires me to work even harder at my own artistic pursuits. Below is a clip from the Boston show that another concert goer posted on youtube. There is another good one here.
This weekend we had a pretty good sized swell come in from a deep low pressure system a little ways offshore. I saw it coming and rushed production on a new handplane. I still hadn’t tested the first one I made because I realized shortly after finishing it that the weight and thickness were all wrong.
My new one is a swallow tail shape, made of mahogany and poplar. It’s much thinner and lighter than my first attempt and has a strap instead of a cut out hand hold. I heard that the cut out throws water in your face when riding so I salvaged the strap off a free diaper bag we got at the hospital when Penny was born, sewed some velcro to it, and fastened it to the deck with stainless screws and washers.
It worked great. I took it out Saturday morning in the fog before the swell started to peak. It was only about waist high and I had an absolute blast. While even the longboarders were scrambling for two second rides I was catching everything with ease and riding most all the way into the beach. Sunday was solid head high with overhead sets so I surfed - nervous to swim out with just the handplane for flotation. I managed a few good rides but it was finicky and the waves were hard to paddle into. That got frustrating, so this morning I left my surfboard at home and decided I was going to give the handplane a try no matter how big it was.
The swell had dropped slightly from Sunday but was still around shoulder to head high and the inside was dumping. I put my fins on and swam out for one of the most thrilling and insanely fun sessions of my life. This may sound weird, but I had such a good time that I felt kind of guilty afterward - like a grown man with the amount of responsibility that I have shouldn’t be allowed to have that much fun.
There is something so pure and joyous in the act of flying down the face of a sizable wave with nothing but the length of your body and a small piece of wood making contact with the water. From now on I plan to leave my surfboard at home more often. There is nothing like standing and carving around on the face of a wave either, but handplaning is a whole different sensation and a welcome change from stand up surfing.
