Greg was just walking up from the beach with a shit eating grin on....blowing 35, waves stacked past the lighthouse, 43 degrees and no end in sight for the wind....can you say 7's BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Toasted the sesh in advance, givng it up for the madness we were about to experience.....sharing an Alpha King!!!!!!!!!!
Right off the beach, the waves were showing thier size.....6 to 8 next to the jetty, and we tagged a couple to start the sesh.....followed Greg down the line, and on down the beach we went.....hollerin' as we proceeded to twin-tip the shiz out of 'em.......smack, bottom turn, lipslide, botttom turn, cutback, bottom turn....aw yeah, lightin' it up!!!!
We cruised down a couple of miles just killin' it, and looking for more.....tacked to the outside and found the 3rd sandbar set just jackin up and onto it we turned....Greg followin' on the bigger set behind me.....easy double head-high, and G was laying it down.....as I came out of my bottom turn and set up a cutback, I glanced back to see my compadre "big-eyed" and all, shreddin' the top of that Haven beauty!!!!
We hit it down low for an hour or so, and then the wind backed off a bit....with the strong current running, we couldn't tack back to the jetty, so we walked it back up.....frozen hands and all!!!
As we got back to the jetty Todd G was launching his new Caution 9...we watched as he caught some big air and proceeded to paint the sky with his yellow board just a flashin' on the darkening Big Lake....he was carvin' it up all the way to the inside break.....fist pumping and smiling that SMILE!!
Greg and I warmed up the hands a bit as we jammed to some disco tunes in the grey Ranger....and then we went back to join TG in the afternooon sleet that made an appearance....just a sprinklin' at first as we rigged the 9's.....and out into 'ol Mother Michigan we headed for another "flash-freeze".
The three of us proceeded to do the round-robin in the waves....always a pleasure to kite in close proximity with your bros, watching as each other ripped it up.......we have banked our water time together and know each others' tendencies and nuances, and there was a fair amount of hand-slapping going on..........
Todd called it a day and went to pick up his lovely wife, Angie....and Greg and I just kept laying down bottom turn after bottom turn, jump after screaming jump....into the sleet and through the afternoon we kited, as our hands began to numb!!!!!
We were like two fireflies hovering around a light, as we dashed in and out of the break, never more than a couple of hundred yards from one another....we tag-teamed it for another good hour, into the driving sleet, up and down the South Haven coastline, and back again to the jetty....catching the wave behind the other, egging each other on.....smacking the waves until we couldn't focus on the water anymore, as it had become part of the horizon, part of the day, an extension of us....another frozen memory....as if etched in stone.....the South Haven sleet sesh stacked alongside the other memories of 2010.....
We noticed that the temp had dropped from a balmy 43 to 36 before we had headed back out....and as we finished our sesh, the frozen hands were a definite testament to the falling temps.....our saving grace was the water temp at about 48.....the 80 rule intact.....
Greg ran to the truck to warm up his hands....I derigged our kites and laughed out loud as the darkness swallowed the afternoon, the streetlights shimmering with glowing circles surrounding them.....I could barely see, sleet was pelting my face, my hands were pulsating.....quite INVIGORATING I must say....one for the ages!!!!!!!
Clementine's for a Bell's Two Hearted and a pan fried Walleye.....and of course a couple of stories from the afternoon.......and what about that killer wave you caught upwind buddy, the one that you laid down the first turn, and when you came off the bottom, I pinched back up into the wave that I was riding in front of you and threw an insane back (looking at you, as you were looking at me while you set up your off the lip, wondering what in the hell I was doing, as I came back around and landed on the waveface right into a bottom turn as you were coming off the top of the wave behind me, just yards separating our kites.....PRICELESS!!!!
