Into May

Steven, Carl, and I commemorated the six month anniversary of Super Storm Sandy by having a lonely beach in the rain with a bucket of clams and hi-lo rigs.  It could have been sold to me as hey we're going to stand in the rain next to the sea and catch sand crabs with mouse traps- I'm usually not fond of clamming- but now no excuse is needed to be near the water.  And I won't even bring a sand spike, I thought, so I'll have to feel everything.  And it felt great casting out for the first time in six months.  We had some 'good water' nearby, to which I decided to try after no success in the 'not so good water'.

I'm getting them, I know it, right in there.  And it didn't take long for a hit.  Steve, hey, they're in here.  More bait, another hit, set the hook, no fish.  Another hit.  No fish.  If it wasn't for the ocean getting much needed oxygen to my brain, my response would have been anger.  On the next hit I tugged it just right and was finally on.  What the heck is this thing?  It was hardly perceptible on my 10ft conventional with 30lb mono.  No surprise as to why my shark outfit didn't move.  In came a mere 10 inch bass attached to the lower clam.  It was the cutest bass I have ever seen.  Steve dutifully photographed the little one.  I told you they are in here!  Isn't this great?  No one around and the fish are biting!  I got out two more, each one was bigger than the next, at 11 and 12 inches.  I'm proud to say I smoked Steve- kind of got him for when he out fished Donald and I three to one in the Columbus Day snapper blitz last year.

The surfing benefits from the endless spell of E winds, but the spring bunker blitzes usually don't

E wind, E wind, NE wind, chilly and damp, chilly and damp, weird wind swell, more E wind, E wind with sun, E wind with clouds, more strange wind swell, E wind with fog clouds, chilly, E wind and cool nights, E wind and clear skies, E wind today, E wind tomorrow.  Air in the 50s, the 50s, the 50s again, 50s, 50s, 50s.

As long as the E wind dominates, it's usually the swell that dominates, and the spring blitz fishing gets put on hold.  There are exceptions of course, but classic spring water is clean and green with smallish waves and a W or new SSW wind.  Things usually don't start happening in the middle of a spell of E wind and so long as the E weather continues, the water's edge should remain free of madmen casting treble hooks into frothing fish.  In a way, I don't even want that right now.  With the shore obviously still scarred, it has been nice to get acquainted with my new life near the water in a state of peace.  Surfing last night in the fog with only two other souls- and no one else for miles- is fine with me for now.

 

 

 

 

 

Stupid Storm Sandy

Until about 4:00pm on that day, October 29, I was having a great time up at the beach in the Super Storm, watching the wild sea and speculating as to what it was going to do.  Once the sea started to surge, well before the high tide, it wasn't as fun.  Once it started crashing over the dunes, ripping out gas lines, and causing a fire it was scary and anger-inducing.  Six months later- half a year- every time I see the small beach and sand castle-like beach front homes, or hear about the cops writing tickets for walking on the beach, or listen when someone tells me about how their home was looted in the days after, or walk my dog along the road and see garbage and cigarette butts and parts of homes I think this is the stupidest fucking thing. 

People do the stupidest fucking shit to the Earth, their home, and then it ruins their homes- and they do the stupid fucking shit again and again.  Got to bring in the heavy equipment and burn more gas, have to get the power back on so the leaking nuclear plant can allow us to watch TV.  I have to get back to spending like $200 a month on gasoline so the weather can get fucked up even more.  Again and again.

The day Stupid Storm Sandy struck there was a stagnant high near Greenland and the temperature was as much as +21F above average.  Earlier in the year, in the summer, under a different stagnant high 97% of the surface of the ice sheet was melting because it was so warm.  Warming up the poles fucks up the weather.  Which fucks up people's lives and bank accounts and stress levels.

When I finally get the chance to speak with an alien, or maybe even a human who knows how to do more than give a salute and a handshake and mumble a prerecorded line about restoring the shore, I foresee a conversation going like this . . .

J: You know, I love the beauty of this planet, but I just get so frustrated with all of the abuse and misconduct.  I could ask why a million times, but I already know the answer.

Alien: Yes it is quite a shame sometimes.

J: It's like how often are humans given the chance to do something better, and they don't?  They choose to do worse!  And they keep doing it.  And if I point that out, they say I'm the weird one.

Alien: Not always to do what is right, but to do what is familiar is the way most humans work.  If what is familiar is war, inequality, ozone holes, cancer inducing products, ignorance of global warming, then you will sound like the odd one if you challenge thier familiarity.

J: I need a new planet.  Or at least the same planet inhabited by those with a different mentality.

Alien: Do not despair.  Back during World War II, humans were close to destroying the planet.  We had to make a lot more visits and some interventions- that's why there were so many sightings in that time, Foo Fighters- not only was there the ecological destruction from the beginning of global warming, that was backseat to the outright slaughter of humans, and the humans acquisition of technology that was even more dangerous.  Since then there has been nuclear radiation and near precise mind control and influence through television and other large media outlets.

J: Like I said, I need a new planet, or at least the same one inhabited by those with a different mentality.

Alien: Fortunately, your planet is diverse.  In fact, Earth is one of the most diverse planets we know of in the universe.

J: Yes, it is a beautiful place.  That is what I love about it.  It just frustrates me, the way some people abuse it.

Alien: It frustrates us, as well.  There is no other group in the universe that we know of, whom if they discovered thier power plants and vehicles were warming the atmosphere and causing destructive weather, that they would not build different power plants and vehicles.  We have no way of making sense of that type of behavior.

J: Yes, I always know my feelings about the Stupid Storm and the droughts are valid.

Alien: Yes they are absolutely.  As an alien, other than monitoring and some minor experiments, unless the world is about to be totally destroyed, like in World War II, we are not allowed to intervene.  But you, while as a human, always have the power to change the world- to influence it, to influence others, to generate responses and shake the cobwebs off of people's familiarity.

The footprints are on the "dune".  The sea level is higher, and doesn't apper to be going down.

I tell you, I am not eager for the Stupid Storm Sandy Stupid Spring and Summer that is likely this year.  Even worse crowds from lack of access or a lack of crowds because half of the summer homes are not really functioning as homes.  Probably a lot of hyperactive, shallow breathing, uptight life guards and police ready to give a lecture about "saftey" and not about the cause of how things got to be so "unsafe" in the first place.  The stagnant Greenland high, the warming poles, the thousands of miles of east wind over the ocean.  The pumping of shit into the air.

And you know it's entirely your fault.  If you decide to keep bumbling along the same track, the familiar track, then nothing will change.  If you decide to change, no matter how miniscule or seemingly inconsequential that change appears, the world around you will change.  Is that true?  No, it's a lie-
but it's a useful way to change the state of what surrounds you.

Air Pollution

I overheard a conversation today that someone not far from here took their own life because of the nightmare that the storm had forced them into.  I sincerely hope they don't have to come back here and that they found what they were looking for with their choice to move on.  The planet can only sustain so much abuse.  Abused women can only take so much before they cry, snap, or even kill.  Mother Earth is no different.  What can I do?  Open your self to what's around you.  Feel the misery, the injustice.  Let it in.  Let it make you uncomfortable.  Walk along the road and smell the poison coming from the cars is a suggestion.  Drive up the Turnpike and smell the poison.  This isn't a joke- it's coming for you, sooner or later if it hasn't gotten to you already.  Getting closer to the truth may fuck you up, it may burst your bubble, and make you sick when you realize that you can't hide.  That's a good test.  If you aren't feeling the misery caused by air pollution, you aren't close enough to what surrounds you.

Air pollution in China over the winter.  Link

A lot more ocean than there used to be in this part of New Jersey

AIR POLLUTION > WARMING ATMOSPHERE > MOST WARMING AT THE POLES > SLOWER/STAGNANT WEATHER FEATURES > BLOCKING HIGH OVER ENTIRE NORTH ATLANTIC > UNUSUAL STORM AND TRACK INTO NEW JERSEY > THE CLIMATE OF THE SHORE HAS CHANGED

Just so you know China and New Jersey are like in the same house.  Not even the Great Wall can keep the effects of that misery away from you and I.  There is no getting away unless you can figure a way to live elsewhere in the stars.  The only true happiness comes from righting these wrongs, everything else is just silly and empty, it's that serious.  Unplug from the Matrix, get real.  Feel depressed, angry, hopeless- not all of the time, but enough so that you stay in check.  The dirty toxic environment we live in, worse in some parts than others, but wherever you go you can see it, smell, hear it, touch it, and taste it.  I've read a book about a future society where if you feel bad you take a pill- they don't actually fix the problems that cause the unhappiness- they just take a pill.  Artificial intelligence doing most of the thinking and all the Zoloft, booze, and underground drugs you could ever want . . .

The Shore in Limbo

I heard and felt the devil in the shrieking roar of the wind the night of the storm.  I felt the presence of evil and wickedness as I trudged in the dark through piles of stinging sand to watch the ocean meet the bay and fire rage in the sky.  And the evil is still around, I walk past it every day.  Entire tracts of homes missing, many others gutted, oh look they demolished that one, now just an empty lot, oh the bulldozed dunes are blowing away in the west wind, the ocean is still high, why is the beach still so small?  Things are still not correct.  The police are paranoid, the towns are paranoid, and if I let myself I could easily feel the headaches of all the homeowners who may have lost the shore or the businessess that lose from the lack of people and construction site beaches that don't want anyone on them.

The line of spooky oceanfront homes stretches for miles.  How many lots will be back to sand once the money gets worked out.

While it's winter and the shore is always quiet and forgotten about in the winter, the real measure of where things stand is when the days are longer and the sun is higher and brighter.  The measure of progress or the lack of it will be revealed as spring turns into summer.  What I want is things to go back to the way they were, because when you think back it was pretty good.  Of course the crowds are horrible at times and the waves usually suck and the fish always seem like they are out too far, but there were always those times, always a chance, where it was possible to score big.  Dozens and dozens of fish with no one or friends.  A-frame waves and a nice west wind, warm water, with only the souls you want with you.

Looks like some other planet, because it is.

A lonely small S swell wave breaking on a new outer bar.  Fortunately, January has been pretty calm and flat, a wierd thing to be glad for.

The mean sea level trend is +3.99mm/year which is equivalent to a change of 1.31ft in 100 years. NOAA

The rate of sea level rise at the Atlantic City station is about 1.31ft in 100 years.  Almost every barrier island in the world is shrinking, even the ones that aren't intensively developed.  With a higher water level, the storm surge has been higher from even minor to moderate storms.  It doesn't take as powerful a storm anymore to cover the beach and eat the dunes, and then keep the sand.  Last year I was in one of the hardest hit areas about to surf an average 3-5ft swell and the ocean was up to the dune fences for no reason.  Then you get the real storm, and the storm surge is off the charts, and it's able to do that much more damage because the water level is higher.  That's on top of how blocking high pressures make storms go where they aren't supposed to go.  The sea level rise, on this chart, really began to move upwards starting in the 1930s.

I always wonder how many more percentage points the ozone layer can deplete, two more percent, five more percent, ten percent, before the person who isn't into such things will go, "Oh shit! We better do something about that.  Right now!"