Swell Stories

While preparing my gear the night before, a quiet snowfall covered everything in a fresh layer of white as I loaded a few boards into the truck and hung my wetsuit near the last embers of the fire inside. If you’ve ever put on a freezing, damp wetsuit in the snow, you’ve done it one too many times. By morning, the truck was ice-cold, the windshield frozen solid, and the temperature hovering at 17º. The lack of heat in my truck is my fault, but the rest was out of my hands.

Winter surfing means fewer crowds, which makes a surf buddy more of a life insurance policy than anything else when the wind chill is claiming 2° like it was this morning. I pulled up to my favorite wave and got my first look at the water as the sun was coming up out of the ocean for a 10/10 sunrise. I snapped a few photos of the epic scene with the orange glow of the sunrise on the snow dusted cliffs, but one look at the swell angle and I knew this wasn't the spot. Lucky for me, my brother called to let me know he found something better. When I pulled up, it was just the two of us and not another soul around—except for James (Katsipis), hidden in the bushes, camera in hand. Snowy surf sessions don’t happen all too often, so we always try to make the most of it, trading waves until the cold finally wins. It's nice to have these images as a keepsake, capturing a morning that is, quite literally, forever frozen in my memory. -JJ