Scale of 1 to 10, how much are you going to miss this? Photo: Dan LeMaitre
This winter has lived up to all the hype. It seems like every day there’s a different purple blob ready to pound the coast, as we watch it all scrolling through our Instagram feed. It’s to a point where we can barely go a week without finding maxed out surf. From Pe’ahi, to Mavericks, down to the Queen of the Coast we have seen endless amounts of claims for “best wave of my life” the past few months. As surfers, this should be a celebration; a sacred time that we never want to end.
As kids, when we were first introduced to the beast that is El Niño, we all dreamt of the season we’d get to see her produce her magic. We heard the older guys in the lineup talk about the winters of ’82-’83 or ’97-’98 as the greatest there would ever be. But guess what…we have made it. We are finally in the season of all seasons. We have witnessed a historic Pe’ahi Challenge, pristine Mavericks and a maxed out Eddie. All in one winter. Not to mention the amount of free surfs across the globe, all thanks to the energy of El Niño.
The only problem is it’s made us a bit complacent. As the winter begins to fade and it begins to smell like summer we have lost sight of what El Niño really is. El Niño doesn’t mean you get a pass by saying, “I’m too tired,” or “the next swell will be better.” El Niño is a thing of beauty that is gifting us with something that we all can never seem to get enough of: waves.
This season is one that we will be talking about for years to come. And yes, one day you’ll be that old guy basking in all the El Niño 2016 glory while tomorrow’s groms look on in awe. So we need to take full advantage of it and make our own memories of one of the best El Niño seasons the surf world has ever seen. We all know that next year this time we’ll be wihing we could go back in time to the winter of 2015-2016. So just take this as a friendly reminder to get out there and enjoy what El Niño has to offer.
