Videos: Surf's Up For Irene Wave Chasers

Long Beach, Long Island (Flickr user NoGoPhoto)

While the rest of the city was busy hoarding canned food, a handful of intrepid surfers were instead chasing after Irene, hunting down the elusive big waves that only a big storm can bring. "It's our only chance as East Coast surfers to get large, powerful waves like in other places in the world," said "hurricane surfer" Shea Lopez. "It's exciting being around the hurricane. You can't help but get caught up in the drama."

Just a week prior to the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour hitting the area, Long Island's Long Beach was crowded with surfers on Saturday, despite an official beach closure. The Daily News also reports that about 50 surfers came to Beach 95th St on Far Rockaway (aka Zone A!) Saturday to catch the six-foot waves before police shooed everyone out. "It was an amazing morning. This is what surfers live for," said Larry Jamieson, who left his house on Nyack at 5 a.m. to hang ten at Rockaway beach. "Surfers are the firemen of the sea. Everyone else is running away from the danger, and we're running toward it."

Here's a few of the highlights—Riding Giants it's not, but Irene's waves weren't too shabby for a bunch of Yanks:

For a first-person perspective:

A lifeguard encourages a little rule-bending:

And finally, this intimate moment between two old friends was caught amongst the stormy chaos.

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By Jamie Feldmar in Arts & Entertainment on August 29, 2011 5:59 PM

Comments [rss]

DaisyZiete

I'm proud to be a Peruvian! In Peru, physical evidence of surfing has been found which pre-dates
human colonisation of the Hawaiian Islands (300-750 AD) by at least 1500
years, and possibly by 2000 years. Modern scientific archaeology
indicates, as many Peruvians have long claimed, that surfing may have
been invented on their north Pacific coast by pre-Columbian cultures
using reed boats to surf the waves. These boats are similar in shape to
surfboards, but are made from the hollow, buoyant reeds of a plant. Peru
has the oldest archaeological and cultural evidence of surfing in
existence. Pottery from as early as 1000 BC unearthed in Peru shows
people wave riding. Additionally, it is clear that the lineage in Peru
originates in the Pre-Incan period more than 3000 years ago. Surfing
continues to the present in both the ancient and modern forms. As proven
by archeologists, this tradition can be traced back to 1000 BC. Surfing
is depicted on ceremonial vessels of the Viru Culture, 3000 years ago.
On these vessels a man is shown standing aboard a little reed craft,
surfing. This means that the earliest surfing in the world that has
actual physical evidence took place in Peru. There is no anthropological
or archaeological evidence for a Polynesian origin of surfing before
the mid 1700s AD.

The modern Peruvian's Inca ancestors called the Kontikis, fishing
along the Peruvian coastline, first rode the waves in the Pacific Ocean.
Huanchaco is a village along the Peruvian coast in which, even today,
the local fisherman use the reed canoes called "little reed horses" to
ride the waves. A link to this ancient Inca past is evident as "modern"
Peruvian fishermen stand on the tails of their "little horses made of
reeds" and ride the small boats to shore after a long day of fishing.
The reed is a cultivated crop. affiliate marketing healthy eating sweating sickness excessive sweating get rid of hemorrhoids what does mrsa look like

AzzTech

Too long.
You should have a short summary and then a link.

randomtransplant

You get waves like that in Long Branch on a decent non-hurricane day, which is, like less than an hour from Brooklyn at 1pm on a Saturday. I can barely ever even get my hands up off the board and even I can tell these guys are lame.

Firemen are skilled. And useful. And not stupid.