All posts by Raymond Hess

I am the editor of SurfingtheGulf.com http://www.surfingthegulf.com/raymond-hess/ contact me: editor@surfingthegulf.com
Clearwater Beach, Weather Trends

How Winter Begins

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We’ve had two or three solid fronts to start off our cold front season. One of the fronts had cold temps only, while the other brought waves with the cold. The early frequency of strong cold fronts has been somewhat unusual. The wave making cold front was actually really fun. Let me tell you about them.

What’s strange about our cold front season has been the early arrival of cold temps. We’ve already seen temps drop into the upper 40s at least twice. Winter wave season doesn’t usually see a good temp dropper until late December, January or February. We’re starting off extra strong. Hopefully winter holds on through late winter and into spring, and keeps pumping out the wave producing cold fronts into the warmer parts of winter wave season.

That little wave producer we just had was definitely fun. There’s no pictures or video that can show you what it feels like to be comfortably warm in a 4 mil in the water and damp out of it. Paddling around in the lineup with both a setting sun on one side of you, and a rising moon on the other side is definitely a more unusual situation. There was something about the winds and groundswell that made it more than just a windy slop fest. Sets would roll through, and along the faces of the waves a sort of smooth textured water surface would precede the well lined up wave faces. That semi-glassy pre-wave texture created a feeling like the ocean had more to show us today than just blasting winds in our face. There was a quiet sanctuary hiding in those windy conditions. I hope you got out to experience it.

Conservation

Dredging and Reconstruction At Honeymoon

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The pace of rebuild is moving slowly. While on a recent crab trap mission I passed the northern lots at Honeymoon. There were 8 or 9 tractors of some kind and 3 of them were operational. You have to wonder what’s really going on. You would think that in the middle of the day on a week day a bit more would be happening. I guess we can be happy the park reopened. Sitting and watching people who are supposed to be doing a job not doing it creates an obligation to report. Who do we report to? No one. You just have to suck it up buttercup, and ask for help with a feeling of helplessness.

Dredging is moving along at the beach. The disgusting sand from the oil covered roads has been picked up and moved back onto the beach. If you’re cool with walking around on oil covered sand I think it’s been a good time to go to the beach. Keep in mind the introduction of pollution onto the beaches and into the waterways isn’t new. Sand is often polluted. It’s cleaner at times than at other times. Fresh sand from the gulf will help. Watching the tug pulling large steel pipes completed covered in rust doesn’t help with the lack of feeling of hope of clean waterways and beaches. I hope you have your tetanus shot up to date.

On a somewhat more positive note the actual water has come leaps and bounds in water clarity. The handful of natural springs that line our coast assisted by the offshore and sideshore winds are cleaning things out quickly. I feel good about consuming crabs after seeing that the water cleaned up.