Hurricane Danielle Photo Surf Safari

By: Ryan Seeloff

At 11:00 a.m. on August 29, 2010 I packed up some camera gear and headed up to the Cocoa Beach Pier to start the first of many Photo Surf Safari's for Destination Brevard.

Surfing has always been my favorite sport to shoot and to participate in and the thought of grabbing some photos of bigger waves heading towards Space Coast beaches got me really excited. Yes I knew that the swell was going to be really chunky as the winds had been blowing pretty fiercely onshore, but that would be alright as long as the waves had some size to them.

My first stop was the Cocoa Beach Pier and there the swell had dropped a little from Saturday, but it was still a solid 4-6 ft with larger sets. About 40 people were in the water, but to be totally honest there were only a couple worth photographing. You'll notice the same people showing up in the photo gallery.

I also noticed that the beach was not anywhere near as packed as you would expect on a Sunday. I suppose people realized that this was not the best weekend to hit the beach if you liked to play in the shorebreak.

Not wanting to spend too much time and miss out on the action somewhere else I headed south after about 30 minutes with a stop at Orange Julius for some sugary nourishment.

The next stop was 2nd Light on Patrick Air Force Base and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as the parking lot was only about half full. Not a good sign when this place fills up if the waves even think of getting decent. With only about a dozen people out and the 4-6 ft waves breaking way outside I snapped a photo with my iphone and did not even botehr to bring out my camera as I decided to head further south.

5th Ave in Indialantic was the next stop and once again there were 4-6 ft waves and not really anyone out. There were more people on the beach than at The Pier, but it was by no means super crowded. Another iphone photo and back into the truck.

Hoping to catch some decent waves/surfers and wanting to glance at the Inlet I stopped at Spanish House and surpise, there were only a couple people out enjoying the waves. It did look pretty fun, but I could look down the beach and the call of the Inlet was too much to resist.

Walking onto the beach at Sebastian I saw quite a few people out, but only a few including Mel Beach's Justin Jones standing out from the crowd. The waves were just as chunky as everywhere else and Justin would nail every section in front of him or take off on some wild and mostly not makeable airs. The sun came out and I ended up spending a couple hours shooting with Mama G and then by myself as I continued to hope that some of the usual Inlet crowd would make its way down.

Finally after a couple calls from my wife wondering if I was going to cook dinner I packed up and headed home. Here is the gallery from the Inlet.

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