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One of the Best...

30/01/99 - Marina, Herzelia - One of the Best

Today was one of the best sessions of my (short) surfing life. No matter how much I write in this report, there is no way I can convey the EXTREME STOKE condition I was in after this session.

I must mention that this swell came as a complete surprise to the Israeli surfing community. The only surfers who knew about it were the ones that check the forecasts on the net. Because of this, there were no crowds. The swell came from a deep low pressure that is currently sitting over Greece.

Part 1:

Time: 6am - 6:30am

Place: Zvulun Beach, Herzelia

Size: shoulder high

Conditions: No one was out. Strong offshore wind. The wave was an extremly hollow closeout. No way out of the barrel. The paddle out was tough, after making it to the break, I was afraid to catch waves because I didn't want to have to paddle out again. I finaly caught one wave (all the way to the beach) and got out of the water. My friend (who came with me) couldn't make the paddle out so he met me on the beach. We decided to go check out the marina.

Part 2:

Time: 6:45am - 11:10 am

Place: Marina, Herzelia

Size: Overhead++ to 1.5x overhead.

conditions: Strong offshore wind. The offshores died down around the time I left. The wave was INCREDIBLE. The marina's wave is usualy pretty mushy, but because of the rains we had here last week, a perfect sandbar formed in the marina and today the wave walled up perfectly (throwing some nice barrels) and peeled across the marina. The lefts were long walls and the rights were barrels (mostly closed out at the end).

Crowds: for the first hour I was in the water with only 3 other people (2 longboarders and a bodyboarder) than the crowd slowly grew to about 30 people. 30 people spread out in the marina is definetly not considered crowded. I heard alot of people saying how the waves were "Galim me hool" (waves like abroad) which they definetly were. These types of swells don't hit our beaches often.

Wave of the day: I could describe one of the many perfect walls I rode from one side of the marina to the other, or I could tell you about all the cutbacks/lipbashes/noserides/steep drops I had, but no matter what I tell you , it won't capture the feeling of the moment.

Fun factor : PERFECT 10

Click on the pix to see them at full size

Me. Going right

Yoni taking one of the smaller waves of the day

Unknown surfer cutting back

Unknown surfer carving a nice right

South peak at the marina, working its magic...