Tag Archives: Gulf of Mexico

Clearwater’s Cold Stunned Sea Turtles

          A Sea Turtle is an air breathing reptile who lives and thrives in the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention the waters all over the world.   The turtle is a large shelled creature who uses it’s shell as protection for its soft body.  The shell is made up of many bones covered with horny scales, also known as scoots.  They have no teeth, but very strong jaws.  There are seven species of endangered sea turtles, the green turtle, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, olive ridley, Kemp’s ridley, and flatback.  The majority of these species of sea turtle are found in the waters off Florida.  Only the olive ridley and flatback are not. Sea turtles grow very slowly, and live for decades.

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A Couple Fun Ones

Big slabs rocked the sandbar today.  There were a few waves with some serious hold down power.  Luckily, the waves were breaking in about 5 feet of water, so a quick pop up was easy.

There was a mild south to north drift, but down by the jetty the drift was nonexistent. Slabbing head high waves were finding their way between the mixed up wind choppy swells.  A couple notable waves came through.  I was sitting next to one of the Chivas brothers when the waves stood up. We scored these two really fun waves with a minimal crowd.

One of the brothers(not sure his name exactly) had gone the wave before mine, on the right, scoring what looked like a steep drop and thick lip, the wave draining into the pocket of the corner of the sandbar. Hollowing out as it careened into the sandbar, the wave was thumping.

Immediately after that wave, this massive west slab only a bit bigger than the one before grew quickly in size.  Go left I thought, because the right was this big gnarly closeout dredger.  I was sitting just on the opposite side of the peak of the right.  And as you may have learned, Sand Key is a challenging wave to take off behind the peak, because of the fast nature of the wave and the lip.  Often times on big waves, boards with convex bottoms(like the one I am riding) will slip out.  Electing to go left, and concerned about the quad setup, the board was holding.  The wave was only a short one, because the end section was bowling toward me, but this set up a crisp and mellow lip to explode on.  The fins cracked the lip shooting water high into the air.  With what was left of the water in the lip section, so went the quad setup fin portion of the bottom of the board.  Momentum carried the tail of the board through the back.  The board was rotating on it’s center, while staying evenly fixed in the energized lip section.  The blow tail ended with a bumpy ride down the white-wash section of the wave.  The wave bucked me off at the bottom.  The wave was so fun.

Gulf Surf – Day 3 of 4

Sunday had exceptional weather conditions.  The light offshore winds and blue skies conditions from yesterday are the exception to the rule.  Much more frequent, waves arrive at the beach accompanied by onshore winds.  The onshore winds can have varied effects on the surf.  The washing machine conditions are the most well known. Continue reading Gulf Surf – Day 3 of 4