Joshua Kinser
Published: November 9, 2005
The weekend of Oct. 23, Hurricane Wilma brought to the Gulf Coast what some are calling the greatest surf in 30 years. Along with perfect waves came world class surfers, the Quicksilver surfing team, photographers and journalists from “Surfer Magazine,” and recognition from the global surfing community that may put the Panhandle on the map alongside the greatest surfing destinations on the planet.
At least during hurricane season.
“Saturday was like a fantasy. Everywhere you looked someone was in the tube or catching the perfect wave. It was a dream,” Yancy Spencer IV said.
Spencer opened the latest issue of “Surfer Magazine” and flipped through the pages to an article about the incredible waves that rolled onto the shores of Northwest Florida during Hurricane Katrina.
In October, photographers from the nation’s top selling surf magazine returned to the coast and once again captured mind blowing images. This time, surfers were tackling Wilma and the photographers raced all along the coast from Perdido Key to Panama City as the ink dried on the latest issue of “Surfer Magazine” and the article on Katrina was being put on news stands around the world.
“This is the first time that I get to see something like this,” Spencer said. “This is a pretty big accomplishment for the Gulf Coast to make a spread in ‘Surfer Magazine.’ Now that we are getting some attention we might be able to make a name for ourselves, not only from having good surf, but having world class surf.”
At PJC, Caroline Balchunas was asked what she thought of the surf Wilma kicked up. Balchunas lived on the beach until Ivan, and has been surfing Pensacola Beach waves for the past six years. Her answers echoed Spencer’s.
“I would say it is the best surf I have ever seen in Pensacola,” she said. “On Friday, I surfed at Pensacola Beach and then went down to Navarre Pier. I dropped in on this one wave and it was a hard right. I almost got barreled. It was awesome.”
As Spencer shuffled through the surfing magazines laying on the front display case inside of Innerlight surf shop he explained how and why Wilma was a “perfect storm” that generated the kind of waves usually found only in surfers’ dreams.
“Wilma was at the perfect angle to generate the longest fetch,” he said. “The fetch is what makes the waves long. It is kind of like if you are in a bathtub and you drop a rock at one end. If you look at the ripples real close to the rock, you see that they are short and real close together, but at the other end the ripples are much longer and more spread apart.
“Since Wilma was real far away and at the right angle, it generated a fetch that spread out like a world class Atlantic or Pacific type of swell.”
Spencer hopes that all the attention will dispel long held misconceptions about surf along the Gulf Coast.
“People come (to Pensacola) and say, ‘Look you finally have surf.’ I say, ‘No, we’ve had surf all summer.’ ”
And while storms are the worst fear for most along the Panhandle these days, Spencer recognizes the consequences but can’t help but welcome the hurricanes.
“We are storm chasers. That’s what we are.”
Check out incredible photos and video of surfers dropping in on Wilma at www.innerlightsurf.com or go to surfline.com to view a two-minute film of the best surf to hit the Gulf Coast in 30 years.
