---

---

---

Blake Escapes the Cold, Visits PR

Blake Jones seems to have thin skin and can’t stand the cold. When Florida is cold that usually means a cold front is passing and with the cold front comes waves. Especially in the Caribbean. So the first legit cold front that came through Florida Blake made the trip down to Puerto Rico to visit good friend to us all, Brian Toth. Part of the trip was featured on Surline.com and here are the “highlights”.

Surfline’s Coverage on the Cold Front: “I came home from Puerto Rico and heard South Florida was as good as it gets. But it was so cold I didn’t even think of looking for waves,” Floridian Blake Jones laughed.

Some of the best surf in recent memory hit select spots in South Florida thanks to the same storm that dumped enough snow over Minnesota to bring down the Metrodome roof. But before this serious low-pressure system whipped up waves from Maine to Miami, Puerto Rico got a healthy helping of surf from an earlier system, equating to a busy week of surf on the East Coast.

“Puerto Rico was pretty good. The swell came up fast and stayed the same size for three days,” Jones recalled. “I was just stoked to get out of town and into some warm water.”

The next system, which turned Miami Beach into an aquamarine tubefest, gave New Jersey and up through New England chilly, but near-perfect surf during the early part of this week.

“This was the first really cold swell we’ve gotten over here,” explained New York photog Matt Clark. “I had icicles hanging from the hair coming out of my hood. It’s really a terrible experience changing in a parking lot when it’s 22-degrees outside. But every summer everyone longs for these late fall and winter swells.”

After having its way with the Metrodome, the front pushed through the Great Lakes on Sunday and dragged a cold front through the Southeast and Florida. With this slow-moving system approaching the eastern US and high pressure anchored over the NW Atlantic, a long, broad fetch was created over the western Atlantic. This set up a several-day run of S/SE windswell/swell for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast late in the weekend and into the early part of this week.

However, that wasn’t the only story within this system. Strong WNW winds behind the front set up a solid windswell, which provided firing surf for South Florida.

And while the temperatures remained icy all the way down through the Sunshine State (Ft. Pierce was in the 20s Monday night!), the multi-day swell kept the frosty faithful rather joyful…right in time for the holidays. And as Clark pointed out, “Even though the waves are great, it becomes difficult finding the motivation to pull on a wet, partially-frozen wetsuit for a second session.”
–Mike Cianciulli/Kurt Korte