Surfing Newport RI

Finally, after weeks flatness, the Ocean kicked up enough waves for Southern Rhode Island to go surfing.

I hauled my soft pale frame onto Second Beach along with dozens of other desperate surfers, aching to peel down a monster.

At first it seemed like competition would be rough with so many riders in the water, but I quickly realized that there was plenty for all, and everyone had a smile.

I, too, soon stretched a grin across my face, the first I can remember for a long time. It’s a strange paradox: the summer usually makes everyone happy. It’s really everyone but surfers. There are no waves in the summer, and it becomes maddening.

In the winter the water turns frigid but the waves turn mean. You can see surfers carving in December with a nor’easter blowing in, having the times of their lives. They don’t get tan, but they get crazy.

I paddled till my arms could paddle no more and I hit up Vicker’s Liquors in Newport on my way home for a bottle of wine to relax and cook dinner.

“Thank God,” I said to myself. “I was starting to lose it there.”