Thu 11 Jan 2007
Last Swell of ‘06
Posted by Casey under Uncategorized
Megan and I brought a few boards and Taylor to South Padre Island to meet up with my bro and Kate for the last weekend of the year and hopefully the last swell of 2006. South Padre Island is located at the southern tip of Texas (roughly a 6 hour drive) and has some of the better and more consistent surf in Texas.
We had fun and it was refreshing to go to SPI again, since our last trip down south was over a year ago. The waves had good size and form, a solid 4 feet when we got there and built to 6-9 feet. We surfed at Isla Blanca Park and then the Port Mansfield jetties when the swell switched from south to north. The jetties require a 20+ mile drive on the beach and can get sketchy on a high tide with surge, some areas of the beach are completely covered in water to the leading edge of the dune system… The waves at Port Masnfield were breaking very nice with a little current running north to south. I surfed the newly acquired 5′10″ M10 hogfish the 3 days we were there. The inside was a little steeper but protected from the current. Megan decided to paddle to the outside and caught a few nice overhead waves, Kelly stayed around the end of the jetty with me, and Kate opted for the inside just far enough in to not get pounded. I had a few good cover ups and a couple nice carves but overall I took more on the head then pulled into. Held under a couple times, which is rare for Texas. Definitely watched some of the biggest barrels I’ve seen in Texas with 3-4 feet eyes, gushing air….with no one in them. We built a fire and warmed up between sessions and Kelly took some vid with the Pentax while getting pounded on the inside. And as most of you that know me, I brought the video cam but didn’t charge it…my specialty. Nothing special but enjoy….
There was one kinda big blemish on the trip. While driving out to the jetties on Sunday morning we heard a loud ‘POP’ as the bungies, which held down our shortboards, came undone. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw our fishes flying in the air and crashing onto the hard packed sand at 40 mph. My fish was aight, however my bro’s board had the tail busted and a fcs plug broken in half…yeah…bungies…no more!
