A Brave Boy’s Journey To Newmibia

Winter Storm Riley brought days of pumping surf to one special zone in New Jersey. On the fifth day — the biggest, stormiest, and perhaps best of the bunch — teenager Jude Clark went through Hell and high water to find some snowy tubes.

Below is Jude’s story, straight from the horse’s mouth:

I was on the parkway heading south when it started hailing. My mom instantly called me, telling me to turn around because the roads are too dangerous. I lied to her saying the roads weren’t bad and I was more than half-way there, but really, I was just getting onto the parkway shitting bricks doing 30 miles an hour in the right lane. I was literally dodging cars that were swerving off of the road. I must have seen 10 cars that de-roaded and crashed into the woods.

Eventually I made it to my exit and honestly, I was shaken up. I figured the worst was behind me but as I was driving over the bridge I saw a huge cloud of black smoke. The cloud was coming from a house that I later learned had been struck by lightning. As I drove past the fire I was forced to a stop by the police because the roads were flooded so badly. There was water coming from both sides (the ocean and bay) and it looked deep. It felt like everything was telling me to just turn around and go home and I knew salt water was bad for my truck but I saw other cars driving through it and the police said I can cross at my own risk. I had already came so far so I just said “fuck it, I might as well just keep going,” so I drove through the 2 feet of salt water.

It turns out I probably should have listened to my gut. I got out of my car to check the waves and when I tried to turn my car back on it wouldn’t start. I was frantically on the phone with my step dad and the insurance company trying to figure out whats wrong with my car and find a ride home. There was a full-blown snow storm with firing waves and instead of surfing I was freezing my ass off trying to fix my truck and asking people for a ride home. Luckily I found a ride home from this dude Jesse that I surf with. So I locked up my car, put my boards in Jesses car, and eventually made it home. I ended up driving back to LBI the next morning to get the car towed, but it started right up when I turned the key. I guess what I can take from this is, if its not meant to be, its not meant to be… Also I should probably start listening to my Mom more often.

Despite this relatively unhappy ending, Jude managed to get some great waves between Riley’s Days 1 and 4, resulting in the edit you’ll see above. How’s his acid drop at 1:07?