Hot Waves, Frigid Water: Just What Winter Surfers Like

November has once again brought surfers straight into winter, the dark half of the year, when wave-riders are forced to wear full-on hooded wetsuit garb, booties and gloves for six straight months. Hamptons surfers won't be able to don lightweight fullsuits again until May 2011, unless they are lucky enough to get away for the winter to some tropical paradise.

November came in with a cold bang last weekend: Plenty of head-high to overhead surf courtesy of southeast ground-swell and offshore winds at East Hampton's beaches.

Saturday turned out to be the biggest day, with wave-faces topping out around 12 feet plus on some of the set waves at certain breaks. Saturday's relatively big waves coincided with extreme new moon tides, and water temperatures in the mid-50s.

Surfers were caught up in the climate and wetsuit changeover and surfers were caught wearing as little as a 3/2mm fullsuits and boots to as much as a January-thick, hooded 5mm with boots and gloves.

On the upside, Saturday offered up the biggest waves this winter. The surfers in the know made a beeline straight for Montauk and it's cobblestone reef-breaks. , Trailer Park, and so on (I can't give all the hotspots away) were the waters to surf because the swells were simply too powerful and out of control for the beach-breaks to handle. Larger size swells need a more significant base to push off of in order to form rideable waves. Sand just doesn't cut it in most cases once the waves get over eight feet.

The only problem was that on Saturday the winds were NNE and then NE, and Montauk's breaks don't really work well with said NE winds. But, there were still waves to be had and many of the die-hards were out there charging some overhead peaks in their fall and winter wetsuits. However, most surfers in the know were secretly holding their breath, waiting for the dawn on Sunday morning.

Sunrise was an hour earlier at 6:30 a.m., thanks to Daylight Savings Time's end, coupled with air temperature a frigid 36 degrees, many surfers arose with the wintry morning Sunday sun and made their way to Ditch to score some perfect head high waves. The swell had decreased in size, but the angle and fetch of the swell had changed slightly, and the winds were now straight north, and much lighter than the day before. The result—perfect chest to head high and sometimes plus lefts at Ditch plains all the crisp morning long. Local rippers, loggers, and grommets were all shredding (or wanking) it up for many cool hours at Ditch. A very fun day indeed.

Meanwhile, at some of the secret spots, local rippers like Montauk's own Charlie Weimar and East Hampton's Chris Matzen were tearing the bag out of it with oodles of style, perfect swell, and flawless wind conditions. Weimar surfed it up all morning on his custom shaped RPD, and made it look easy, while at roughly the same time, Matzen was tearing it up at another undisclosed secret location, pulling into barrel after barrel!

November has kicked off with a bang, and it now looks like we have more swell coming our way for the rest of this week. So ready up your boards with cold water wax and get out your winter wetsuit gear, because there's more swell on the way and things definitely aren't getting any warmer. Hot waves and frigid water, the way we like it, all winter long.