While my wife and I were on our road trip these last few weeks I made a quick stop to Cocoa Beach, FL to see how the other half lives. When I check in to our hotel, I asked the clerk if there was anything to ride wave-wise in the Atlantic. He said, “Oh yeah. It’s actually been really good the last few days. You’ll dig it.” Then he saw my “Huntington Beach” on my license and then added, “…but you are probably not going to be impressed.” Still the next morning I woke up for the dawn patrol, but the board rental guy was late and no one else was out in the water to try and bum a ride from. So I went out and did some body surfing in the meantime.
The water was just above 70, but murky as Oregon ocean water. The waves were actually great little knee to thigh-highs with good strength. I had a lot of fun flopping around out in the water. Eventually, some other surfers started showing up with some logs and were cruising around hootin’ and hollerin’. But what really got me was the sun rising over the ocean. The sun on the horizon coming through morning haze…Jimminy Christmas was that a head splitting experience. You need polarized ski goggles to survive that. It was like a sunset surf session on the West coast, but with the sun angry and painful instead of pleasant and calming.
Later that night, I was watching Shark Week (why do surfers love watching this?) and I saw that the Cocoa Beach area has the highest number of reported shark attacks. And there I was swimming in that murky water all alone…