Surf's Up!

I finally got a morning that I could head to the beach. I have been down in South Florida visiting my parents and sister Jackie. My mom has been keeping me busy with a long "mother do" list. And I thought Carolynn's "honey do" list was long....

I hit one of the Boca Raton beaches first - Red Reef Park. As I entered the beach area there was a big sign that said "No Swimming". Apparently the rip currents were really bad due to the hurricanes and tropical storms that are out there. Yesterday 3 swimmers died down in Ft. Lauderdale. I ended up just walking south to watch all the surfers on the south end of the beach. They allow surfing when there are high surf conditions, but not swimming. What's up with that? Well, at least the surfing conditions were great today. There must have be 30+ surfers out there having a blast. One came by yelling "Surf Up!" It was fun to watch them all. Some were actually really good.

I decided to head North to one of my favorite beaches to do some running and maybe swim. Spanish River Park is a nice park that offers a good location to train and is the site of the annual FAU Triathlon. I spent many days at this beach when I was going to Florida Atlantic University. Good memories for sure. The waves were not as big here so I decided to go for a swim in spite the rip current warnings. What a blast! It was so much fun battling the surf and I was getting one heck of a workout. I got caught in one rip current, but kept my cool and swam along the shoreline until I was out of it. Just when I decided that I better return to shore I got hit hard by a large wave. As luck would have it another wave hit me again just as I surfaced. I was tumbling along the ocean floor and thought I would never come up. I almost started to panic, but knew that I just had to ride it out. I was really glad when I came up and I quickly made my way to the shore.

My next stop was Deerfield Beach. This place has changed a lot during the last 10 years. Now this was the place to be, as the beach here was packed with 100's of surfers, volleyball players and packed full of sun worshipers. I spent about an hour there enjoying the sites. That was until a older man walked by in a G String. When I saw that I knew it was time to head home.