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From the World October 13, 2020

Postcards from the eastern seaboard.

Words by Seth Conboy | Photo by Claire Murphy

So not to get a personal, but this swell saved my ass.

I’d been working all summer stuck in America waiting for our surf year to start back up on the East Coast.

Between everything going on in the US (politics, riots, angry Karens, etc…) and my personal life, this swell reset me back to a sane place.

As always, hurricane swells are pretty hyped up over here and most of the time they end up not being what everyone thought was going to happen. With that being said, I got on the hype train and started calling some homies to see what the move was. It was looking like northern US states were going to get good for a few days so I packed my car up, bought some smokes, and headed up to Balaram Stack’s place to meet up with him and Colin Moran. What was supposed to be a little 3 day stay became a little over a week in New York. We surfed the first swell and then that following weekend a new one arrived so hunkering down at Bal’s was an easy decision. Bal would slip out early in the morning to go spear fishing with his brother. He’d come back with something to eat every time so going out to get pizza wasn’t a necessity. His Mom Mary is the nicest woman ever. Always taking care of all of us, making sure we were all good and sharing epic stories about her past trips to Hawaii with Bal. I can’t say enough good things about the Stack family, thank you Mary!

Photo: Claire Murphy

Colin Moran on the other hand… Haha this was my second or third time hanging with him? Let’s just say this time I really got to know him. Colin Moran, the easiest going, smoothest vegan I’ve ever met. Colin kind of blew me away at times. “Colin what the fuck are you doing?” He’d be sitting there checking his stocks and looking at beat up cars in the area. The guy has priorities right now, it’s nice to see. Colin and I are living pretty opposite lives right now, he’s all wifed up and I’m a free bird, he’s watching his health and I’m destroying mine, he’s a west coaster and I’m an east coaster haha… Colin should just move East though he’s an east coaster at heart.

Photo: Claire Murphy

Anyways, yeah for a week we all surfed, drank beer, sauna, ice bath, ate food, etc… The second swell, Hurricane Teddy, provided some toobs, but the direction of the swell wasn’t dead on with NY so it was time to make a call. I surfed with the boys in the morning and then decided to make my way back towards home in Ocean City, MD because reports were looking really good. I left NY and drove down to New Jersey to surf an evening session, before driving the rest of the way home. Toobed in NY in the morning, then toobed in New Jersey in the evening. I quickly hopped back in the car and drove through the night to get home. That next morning in Maryland was something really special. When your backyard ends up looking unreal with world class surf, you can’t control the excitement. My best friends from home and I spent all day trading blow out barrels and laughing. My crew at home gets barreled as fuck. Our surf community in Maryland had grown after that perfect day. It seemed like surfing got this revival in my hometown that it needed so bad. I will say all the waves I saw on the road did not match my local line up that day. Maryland is on the map! Being in the right place at the right time, that’s the motto for an East Coast fall. 

Photo: Dave Nilsen

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