March Madness

By Jeff Little

After a disappointing end of winter, March and the start of the spring season delivered consistently fun waves for nearly the whole month. While the Northeast and Mid Atlantic regions of the East Coast may have scored big and epic conditions, St. Augustine remained rideable enough to keep even the most unmotivated of surfers in the water. On top of that, nature did all it could to warm the water up to a comfortable 72 degrees and allow surfers to retire their wet suits until next winter. Daylight savings time even took place in March this year, offering a couple extra hours of time in the water a day.

Conditions in the water the past few months could have been a little more ideal, but then again they could’ve been a lot worse. Many of the sandbars on the Island are sort of hit or miss; hit at high tide and miss at low tide. The outside sandbars are diminishing, leaving mushy but ripable waves. The inside, on the other hand, has tightened up greatly. It offers a short paddle out, and you can basically walk to where the inside is dumping. Fun, sectiony and sometimes hollow little waves were around daily at high tide for basically the entire month.

As soon as the wet suits came off, the crowds came in as well. Both surfers and swimmers have been hitting the beach as often as possible, although many tourists are too scared to enter the water because of the booming cannonball jellyfish population. Where do all those things come from anyway? Man-o-wars have been lurking around delivering painful stings to some very unlucky people.

All there is to do now is hope the rest of spring cooperates before the usual summer flat spells return and the water warms up to the point of non-refreshment. Hopefully April will bring as much fun and excitement as March did.