Hank's Bodysurfing Blog: Sizeable Swell to Celebrate the Stentor of Stoke

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Sizeable Swell to Celebrate the Stentor of Stoke

The large swell that's been traveling up from New Zealand over the last week arrived on time late Friday to greet this year's sojourn by the Stentor of Stoke, Eric Yeisley, back to his hunting grounds in the State Park.

Before moving to Colorado, EY_\ was the glue binding the Golden Triangle - SCSP's looseknit bodsurfing association - together.

Golden Triangle founders Hugh Berenger & Eric Yeisley semaphore the ohana's /_\ logo

Now, on his once-a-year visits, the tribe gathers, this year finding a solid swell to celebrate the visit.

Solid swell draws scores of sticks to the Main Peak

While the Main Peak was densely populated by board surfers, the area at the bottom of the path down from the Park in front of LG1 and King's Korner to the south were given over to the band of the body. When I arrived there were already 13 heads out in the water, mixing up long left shoulder slides on the inside waves with tubular action on the sets waves. Solid, 4' - 8' surf, carrying a lot of power in the long-interval swell. Though smaller than the hurricane waves of preceding weeks, the much longer period created more power per foot of swell...the quest of the bodysurfer.

Crawdaddy got some fun footage of the pod

In the water, joining the itinerant EY_\, were original GT/_\ core members Hugh "Huge" Berenger, Chuck "Kahuna" Herpick, Brent "Crawdaddy" Crawford and Derrik "MuDsHaRk" Sciarra. GT regular Mark "Sailfish" Ghattas (duck model above) joined long-timers Steven "Hawk" Harkins and Eric (nickname omitted) Ackerman. Bret "da threat" Belyea made it up from SD county for his occasional visit, with a buddy in tow, while SC denizen and frequent Park-er Shawn O'Gorman drew several friends of the SC Waveriders into the water. There were a few I didn't know, and apologies to those I've overlooked!

While the sticks fought it out further north,