ASC Farewell Message:
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Though my stay within this club has been short, it has been a truly wonderful vehicle for me to promote my surf stoke whilst on the East Coast.  The message boards have delivered me from surf starvation, and the one time I did get to meet a lot of the crew, we had a wonderful time getting rejected from those massive OC lippers.

Well, it is an unfortunate thing to say that I must bid the East Coast farewell, as I am moving to, what folks have told me to be, the center of the surfing world... Southern California.  Yes, that is correct, I am moving to the infamous O.C.  So, from one O.C., to another.

That is not to say I will not do return visits, or monitor the swell charts and message boards for that sweet, epic East Coast Hurricane swell that no other coast can seem to replicate in terms of stoke and mysticism.  However, what I lose in the East, I gain in swell consistency and period, which makes me quite happy to say the least.

So, there will be no more grumbling on my part, as I move a mere 5 miles from the beach, where I hope to get in a quick surf before my days toils in the office.  I have solved to locational issue, and am quite stoked.

Never will I forget the OC poundings, the rippable Assateague walls, the Delaware jetties, the lack of crowds, those thick and meaty Maryland tubes breaking in 2 feet of water, or my days in lovely Cape Hatteras.  Also I will not forget the 39 degree water, the snow on the beach, the jelly fish, the 5-hour swell window, the massive north-south current, and the waiting...OH the miserable waiting that goes with living so far away from the beach.

I will say, though, for my time on the East Coast, I feel blessed that I have been able to score some truly epic Atlantic Ocean swells, that many surfers around the world have yet to experience, and probably will never.  The EC seems to me to be widely overlooked as a surf destination due to it's fickle and inconsistent behavior.  Along with that, is less waves, less coverage, less crowds, and - what appears to many - as "less of everything"; nothing could be further from the truth.

I have found the surfers on the East Coast, generally, to be more dedicated, more hard-core, more tolerable of temperature variation, more friendly, and often, more stoked.

Additionally, I have scored some of the best barrels of my life right in good ol' MD.

So, with that, I can only say farewell to my beloved right coast. However, I cannot say farewell to the ASC, as I will always feel part of the crew that welcomed me with open arms even though I am originally from SoCal.  I will still be hanging around, but only in a 'Net presence, until the next major Hurricane, a la Isabel, begins sending us her rolling packets of pure pleasure.  For that, I may have to score quick round trip plane ticket :)

Thanks you East Coast, you have been so good to me.

Brian "Grumbling Snowman" Gable