JOSE will be the third Hurricane to affect the US in as many weeks.

HARVEY wrecked havoc in Texas. IRMA slayed the Caribbean before destroying The Keys. And now JOSE is heading for the northeast. And while most forecasts has him skirting the coastline, they are not ruling out JOSE making landfall from New York to Boston.

The last thing we need is for yet another hurricane making landfall.

The preferred track is the coastal route. As in just enough to send us surf and not close enough to cause anymore damage and heartache.



All eyes are on the south facing beaches again. It sure looks like JOSE is gonna send some surf our way. This is one of those storms where surfers can legitimately get excited. Having learned their lessons about predicting surf from Hurricanes that are just off the coast of Africa.

This is not the case here. We are going to get surf up and down the East Coast and into Nova Scotia and Iceland. So pull those step ups and guns off the racks and wax em kids. It's show time! Time to put all that training to some use. What's that? You haven't been training for big surf? You all better get your shit together and make it sooner than later.

This has been a summer of reconnecting with a lot of NH transplants to others parts of our country. Ryan Olsen, TC Christo, and Dougie "Fresh" Wright were all in town on Labor Day. They have all left with the exception of Ryan Olsen. He and his wife have moved back for the time being. It was great to see them all and even better to be able to catch some of their surfing on video and stills.

They were stoked to be home again, and even more stoked to score surf.

Timing your visits back home to coincide with potential surf is not as easy as it seems. In fact, it's a bona fide crap shoot. But the boys scored. And I was happy to provide them with some lasting memories in the way of digital files.
I did a web edit on labor Day that had all three of them playing in their old playground. And I shot a significant amount of stills as well.

Suffice it to say, they all went back with smiles on their faces and stories to tell their West Coast and Hawaiian friends.

And just when the last one left (TC) another old friend came home for a quick visit. And I do mean quick visit. Robin Rowell was in town and he was in Hampton for all of an hour. He and his dad were on a tight schedule. They were heading to Maine to meet up with some other family members. Robin no longer surfs due to health conditions. But he's still a walking and talking encyclopedia of surfing. Especially California.



Back in the day Robin was one of the most powerful surfers to ever surf our waves. He was like a linebacker out there with the finesse of a wide receiver. He was intense. Just a pleasure to watch him take off behind the peak and just rip the snot out of the wave in front of him. A goofy foot with smarts.

I first met him in the early 70's at 10th Street. There was a small knee to waist high swell running when I saw him on the beach. He was sitting in some kind of lotus yoga position reading a book on "psychology."

He had that distinctive bowl hair cut like George Greenough.

I walked up to him and asked him why he was reading "that book" when there was surf to be had. He must of said something negative, because I ended up kicking that book out of his hands and shamed him into going surfing with me.

We were close friends from that day forward.



Robin could switch-foot and just kill it on any wave he took off on.

There is not enough time or space to write here in this blog about the days we all spent together surfing together. But it's safe to say, we got more than our quota of waves back then. And we did our share of skateboarding as well.



This was a spot I discovered and named GHOST TOWN. That's Robin skating by our late friend Joe Somogyi. We all skated barefoot back then. Somewhere on my Vimeo page is a video from this session. I would park my van along the vacant building and open the doors and blast Robin Trower.

Those were fun times for sure. And like all good things, we though they'd never end. But life caught up to us all. Robin would still come back every summer, but the visits became every other year to finally years would go by before we saw him. I have seen Robin whenever I'd go to California. It was great seeing him. We all hung around and reminisced about the past.



I managed to get a selfie or two. That's Robin leaning on Kevin.
I hope he takes better care of himself. He told us he caught his last wave 9 years ago. That's a long time. It would be fun to surf with him one more time.
Maybe he'll read this Blog, and get his ass back in shape, and one of these upcoming summers he'll show up in great shape, and then proceed to show us all up out in the water.

Because Robin could surf. We love you brother.


"Surfing With Friends Heals All Wounds"

(Above) TC Christo throwing his board up into a lip that's been years in the dreaming. Wednesday September 13th, 2017 Photos by RALPH
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(Above) A closer look. September 12th, 2017 Photos by RALPH
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