Cold Water Revolution?

[BoMan]

This winter I’ve seen more surfers at all levels at Bolinas. Students, professionals and seniors are coming midweek to enjoy the 50 degree water. Is this a thing in your lineup? If so, do you agree or disagree with the article?

The Winter Surfing Revolution—Why the Sport’s Fans Are Forging Into Chilly Waters
Surfing’s sudden surge in popularity means that even far-flung, warm destinations like Sri Lanka, Bali, and the Maldives are becoming nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in daily lineups, pushing the most devoted athletes into inhospitable, chilly territory to avoid bumping their boards against clumsy newcomers. What’s more: Winter is storm season, stirring up activity in the ocean resulting in the most consistent and biggest waves. Serious surfers are after an endless winter, and thanks to leaps and bounds in wet-suit technology they can chase it into colder waters than ever.

http://www.vogue.com/article/best-winter-warm-wet-suits-winter-surfing-destinations-patagonia-xcel

[saltydog]

Interesting to see the article was from Vogue of all places. Anyway, I see less people in water where I'm at unless the big swells are here when all of a sudden I see 200 in a lineup. For average days however, it's usually no more than 5-8 sometimes as few as just myself. With a proper wetsuit I'm perfectly comfortable and without the worry of too much sun exposure I'd say endless winter sounds good to me. I'm already dreading the summer crowd and the lack of swells combined with less optimal wind. Granted water around here rarely goes below 56 degree so easy for me to say "bring on the chill." It's not that cold even compared to NorCal.

[Oldie]

Depends where you are. 50° is cosy and we have to wait until May for that. Our winter means 40-45° water max, with air being colder, often around 32°F and wind typicall strong onshore, or an icy Northeast winter chill from Scandinavia. So including windchill, it feels like Northpole. Summer cannot come to soon and I look forward to my trip to Spain in 4 weeks.