Meanwhile, On The Eastern Seaboard (A Mini Gallery)

“The storm was so intense on the highway,” lensman Mike Incitti tells Stab. “There were snowflakes the size of golf balls!” As the media rallies towards the Gold Coast, awaiting the WSL’s inaugural horn, a sizable Nor-Easter is bringing surf to the United State’s east coast. While it’s near-flat, 75 degrees (Fahrenheit) and sunny in Southern California, the East Coast is suffering from a blizzard in below freezing temperatures. The surf, for the northern states, is serving double overhead, offshore, dark holes. “I left my house in central New Jersey the night before the storm and barely made it down south, it was spooky,” continues Mr Incitti. “Luckily we got to surf some warm(er) conditions from a south swell after driving into and out of the Nor-Easter storm the night before.”

Draw an A and put it in a frame.

Notable names are for contests and web-edits, but the east coast troupe doesn’t hesitate to don their boots, hoods, and gloves and slip into a heavy and hollow mess. If you look closely, you’ll see Raven Lundy navigating this black and white hole.

“The colder the better,” says Raven on today. “That means no crowds. We don’t get waves like this very often over here but a few times a year Mother Nature shows us some skin. The winds were blowing close to 50 mph offshore with water and air temps in the 30’s. At one point it was sleeting. I’m still thawing out.” 

“This was almost the perfect storm,” he continues. “Two massive low pressures merged together off the Outer Banks and ran up the eastern seaboard hugging the coast. As soon as it passed the winds switched to hard offshore, with the swell on the backside of the storm it created some mutant kegs.”

Ever wonder why guys from the east coast charm on the North Shore? For California’s southern epicentre of surf, this is quite uncommon. Here Raven embraces the eye of the storm.

These photos were shot a few hours ago in Maryland, and they’re the antithesis to surf media’s current Gold Coast affection: Big, frigid, raw, uninviting and near-empty and ridden by surfers you’ve never heard of.