Surfing, Seafood and Living in Cocoa Beach

Living in Cocoa Beach, Florida has many perks, it’s surrounded by water which means you can enjoy any water sport you can think of and some, like kite boarding, the newest extreme water sport. In Cocoa Beach, you can drop a line from almost any bridge or body of water you come to and can, most likely, catch something to eat for dinner or go to a local restaurant and feast on what their fishermen have pulled in from the night before.

That’s another perk of Florida, all the seafood you can eat and if you’re like me and could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, this is a very good thing. I’m always amused by people who move here, don’t like seafood and then don’t even try to acquire a taste for it like my brother-in-law, what a waste.

Another benefit of living here is that all the best places in Florida are relitivally close-by, like all the islands that are dotted along the coast, Amelia Island, Sanibel Island and let’s not forget the Keys. Our islands in Florida are constantly being rated among the “Top 10” in magazines or on travel shows for beaches, or places to find shells or for this or that, we love it.

There are also smaller islands in the rivers here that people pull boats up around during the summer and party long into the night, we have our own “Redneck Yacht Clubs”, so to speak, it really is a great state.

One of the drawbacks to living near Cape Canaveral, unfortunately, is that we sometimes get storms here, bad ones, and not all have to reach hurricane force to be devastating take Fay for instance, she beat us up pretty bad and she was just a tropical storm when she smashed into Florida. Who will ever forget 2004 when we had 4 storms within weeks of each other, what a mess that was, there were several people who had enough and actually moved out of the state.

One group of people, maybe the only group that look forward to hurricanes are the surfer’s. Florida east coast beaches are known as the small wave capital of the world and when the storms roll in you can bet they take advantage of it.

I happen to have the pleasure of living close to the Cocoa Beach Pier which is home to not only the popular Ron Jon’s Surf Shop but also the Cocoa Beach Surf Company; needless to say we have a lot of surfers here. On September 5 of 2009, Tropical Storm Hanna passed about 100 miles off the coast of Florida and it was a great time to go to the Cocoa Beach Pier, which we did, to watch the Cape Canaveral surfers.

The sky was all grey and deep blue with hints of purple, there were people all over the pier, drinking, fishing and of course watching and photographing the surfers. We had a good time watching the guys, and girls, get up on some pretty awesome swells, get some pretty wicked rides and catch air. So many people had cameras it was interesting to hear all the comments like “did you get that shot” and “Dude I got him in the air”. We all took our turns at the railing taking pictures and of course the conversation soon turned to all things camera related. The most common question was “What do you shoot with?”

Their was a lot to photograph that day too not only were the surfers spectacular but the sky was awesome the clouds were dark and flowing across the sky but they were swirling too, that was quite a sight.

We all had fun but I think no one had more fun than the surfers did. I’ll bet they were all wiped out at the end of the day but feeling like it was well worth it.