Surfing Sandy - How Environmental Disaster Can Be Cool

Hurricane Sandy was being called Frankenstorm as she rolled up the coast. And she proved every bit as violent as promised, submerging the whole Jersey Shore (though, unfortunately, not the cast of JERSEY SHORE - though perhaps the dismal rating on this season, their final, is proof enough that they're already sunk), turning New York into a skyscraper Venice (appropriate since high-end Manhattanites so love Venice in the Fall) and in general leaving a path of destruction in the mid-Atlantic not seen since eighteen hundred and fourteen A.D.

It got Chris Christie and Bloomberg to both admit that Obama's a good leader (in comic contrast to Katrina, which got everybody to admit that our president-who-shall-not-be-named was an idiot and hated black people) and the insurance money going to rebuilding the most populous seaboard in North America will probably help our struggling job market. But all that aside, Hurricane Sandy reminded us one thing - Nature's a motherfucker.

God-powered, city-flattening mother nature won't answer prayers, won't show you mercy. She'll snap babies from your arms, sink your historic replica of a historic boat, and has killed at least 100 people (98 at this point and still rising). But if you got balls, skills, and perhaps a touch of madness, such violent forces can provide you with the most amazing rush you could ever imagine.

Enter the Wild Lyfe Crew. With a jet-ski (most likely to protect them should a "Perfect Storm" wave roll through), these bastards charged possibly the biggest waves to ever have been surfed in Ocean City Maryland on Monday, just before the Frankenstorm struck.

Check the video, shot with a crappy handheld and soundtracked by some awful taste in music (what you gonna expect, they're OC locals) but what the video lacks in technical perfection it makes up in some downright dirty hurricane surf. And seeing this normally flat and sad surf spot pitching such massive barrels - that's once-in-a-lifetime, bro.

Unless Sandy's just a taste of things to come as we fuck up the climate more. In that case, though our East Coast may be moved several miles back over the next decade, at least there's one good thing to take away from this - surf's up!

Either way, let's give a shout for our friends and family still drying out and hope they don't get mauled by this nor-easter that's just beginning to bear down on 'em. Happy Friday.

- Ryan