Offshore Score: A Different Side of Jonas

Photos by Shaun Devine. Words by John Streit.

For how long Winter Storm Jonas lit up the East Coast with pumping swell, scoring ideal conditions was truly a labor — albeit of love. Similarly to a hurricane sending in long-period pulses, many surfers’ dilemma was finding a wave that wasn’t either maxing out over the outer sandbars, closing out or just not working. It was truly either score or skunk, and it all depended on where you checked it and if you could check your guts going up against icy, double-overhead death pits.

As Jonas exited to the North Atlantic away from the United States — where it left a trail of destruction from feet of snow, power outages, storm surge flooding and widespread coastal erosion — its final throws became the stuff dreams are made of in the northern Outer Banks. On this day, warmer, offshore winds groomed the faces of northeast swell, making for long, rolling lefthanders breaking into the serene sunset. The waves offered plenty of size, but the shape provided the perfect canvas for your go-to surfboard. Sure, barrel hunting square drainers can be as glorious as it can be painful; but there isn’t one surfer out there that wouldn’t drool at the conditions yours truly and fellow S&A team rider Shaun Devine found for this late-day session somewhere between the VA-NC line and Cape Hatteras.