Cape Hatteras.
One good thing about kneeboarding; we can fit inside of these!
This was the time we moved Hot wax into a larger 1200 square foot space at a strip mall next door to where we were. We moved the store over night never losing a day of sales. Honestly, we had a group of employees we hand picked from the youth group at church and they were good workers. We hardly every worried about in-house theft and they were always very polite to customers. Seriously. Over the years we would move Hot Wax a total of four times...always over night, and always by employing the Forgiven.
The new bigger Hot Wax Surf Shop
(That's my sister in law)
The second Hot Wax Challenge
Crystal Pier Wrightsville Beach NC
Because of how big it had gotten the contest literately lasted from sunrise to sunset both Saturday and Sunday.
Mark and I started surfing Masonboro Island a lot more due to the uncrowded conditions and consistent waves. The paddle to get over to the island isn't easy and, at this time, not very many people did it. One has to aggressively paddle across Masonboro Inlet which is over 1500 ft. wide and contains a heavy and very fast current running down the middle of it like a loose fire hose. The inlet flows into the Atlantic and is used by pretty big boats, Coast Guard included. Some boat captains don't see surfers crossing the inlet and a few have been hit, some have even died. Now the Coast Guard patrols the crossing and gives out tickets. The paddle has also taken many strong men out into the ocean where the sharks like to play. Over the years of kneeboarding I numbered the reasons why flippers are a plus...this paddle being one of them.
The waves on Masonboro are always good on a north swell and it stays fairly glassy even in a wintery northeastern wind. Most of its breaks are fast and shore-breakish. The drops are steep and the barrels quick. Sometimes shoulders can be long enough to pull off a couple maneuvers, but personally, I found the tubes more inviting. Occasionally we took the kids camping on Masonboro, but that was only when we had access to a boat, which Mark ended up buying at one point.
Masonboro Island
The kids and I went to California for Christmas this year and Mark had a trip to Hawaii planned at the same time. I had had my fill of Oahu and didn't mind if I never went back. I did though. One year Rip Curl sent Mark and I there as VIP-Sponsors over Thanksgiving during the Triple Crown in 2003. We stayed in a house at Lanikea. The waves were great! That was the last time I saw the North Shore...times had changed. The place was crazy with people!
Anyway, on Christmas day Mark came out of my Moms garage and surprised the jingle bells out of me. We spent the next couple of days surfing Huntington Beach then he hopped on a plane for the Islands.
My brother, Ray, a friend with a boat, and I headed for the Hollister Ranch. We lowered the boat over the Gaviota Pier and headed north. The sun had just broken through the winter morning and the air was brisk mixing with the cold spray of the Pacific Ocean. I don't remember which right point break we surfed but it was a fun five foot. The kelp tried to tie me up more than once. Sea lions would poke their heads out of the patches and sniff the air. I thought of sharks and negative reason #1 for wearing flippers.
The day was full of old-school camaraderie, and I loved every minute of it. It had been a long time since I'd seen Ray. It was like we were best friends all over again.
Gaviota Pier and Ray
For Christmas Mark shaped my brother a custom surfboard. It would be the first of many. Over the years Mark would shape boards for a few of my California friends proving his hand shaped ProLines dependable in all surfing conditions...no matter which coastline. In my opinion Mark is one of the most under rated shapers to ever to come out of the east coast. I believe the reason for this was his attitude. If Mark thought you were a Dork or a Kook, he'd let you know. This made people nervous around him. Mark could be very intimidating when he wanted to be. Eventually his intimidation would turn to arrogance and soon mature into impertinence. A word he told me was labeled on him by an Elementary School teacher.
"She would look into my face and tell me I was impertinent." He'd say to me proud of the fact. Little did that teacher know she was a prophet.
My brother
For a couple of years I played softball for the Next Door Bar connected to Katy's Grill in Wilmington. This year we never lost a game. I also played for a team at Wrightsville Beach and I played for our church. Soon, I started playing left field (which I had always played) for Powerade and stuck with them for the next 18 years. John, the coach, kept me busy not only with Powerade but also with his coed team, and eventually girls travel team. (I still played for the church.) When Mark and I started taking surf trips around the world John became more than my coach and friend, he was a fan. No matter if I needed a week or two off to surf somewhere exciting, he never sat me on the bench as a penalty. He respected and liked my enthusiasm, energy, and universal athletic ability. We are still friends.
The Katy's (Next Door) team.
The girl in the bottom row without blue sleeves and the guy, bottom row, right, are the parents of Shawn O'Donnell (SOD Surfboards)
On the flip side...
A type of destruction had started between Mark and I when our daughter, Sarah, got older. She had a terrible temper and would go into ballistic ravings at the drop of a hat. At one point I believed she was possessed by Satan himself and asked the church to intervene with prayer, (I really did). Her random outbreaks were hard for everyone to deal with. She'd get this glazed look in her eyes and start screaming at the top of her lungs. She'd hit, kick, bite, and claw. Some say a lot of kids do that, to which I say, not like Sarah. She was at the top of her class! Experts wanted to drug her, but I refused.
I soon found out something interesting that helped me help her....during one of Sarah's fits I grabbed her and carried her kicking, screaming, and biting, to her room and told her not to come out until she was finished with her fit. I could not lock the door so I stood there waiting for her to try to escape. I heard her tear her room apart and was concerned about her coming out and tearing the rest of the house apart, she was that destructive. But Sarah stayed in her room all alone and eventually calmed down. It was a miracle! After awhile she emerged as happy as a Lark...like nothing ever happened. From that point on I stopped trying to reason with her while she was in fit mode and I'd just grab her and carry her to her room and shut the door. When we were in public and she'd go into a fit I'd just walk away. She'd stop and run after me.
I saw Sarah's fits as a strong independent Will and began excepting it as a virtue. I studied up on how to help her Will become an asset to her personality and worked on training her to use it efficiently. I found the book...
Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours [Paperback]
Kevin; Baker Book House Fleming H Revell Co Leman (Author)And my view of the problem changed forever.
I found unfortunately Mark didn't see her outbreaks and my walk away solutions the same way. He saw them as defiance. Mark wanted to reason with her as to why she was being a pain in the ass. His attitude only fueled her fire, and I continually found myself in the middle of a civil war with Mark asking me to take his side and Sarah needing me to help her calm down.
"You can't reason with her in this state." I'd tell him.
"She needs to know why she's wrong." He'd reply. Then he'd tell her so over and over again which only made her scream louder. Often, after a rage, Sarah would come out of her room calm and happy, like the rage never happened and I would be relieved, but Mark would want an apology and hounded her for one to the point of starting up the rage again. It was terrible. She was far too young to reason at this point.
The constant struggles (and there were many!) between Sarah, Mark and I became a real strain on our marriage. It was pulling me apart and I started resenting it. Mark didn't like that I wasn't always on his side when he provoked Sarah and decided us girls were teaming up against him. To me, Sarah was our daughter and it was our responsibility to help her mature within the arms of unconditional love and forgiveness. I wanted Mark to stop antagonizing her. To date Mark and Sarah do not talk.
But I have to say this...
During this time, one time, Mark got so upset at Sarah that he went to grab her to sit her down so he could talk to her in a grown up way. She immediately went into her physical struggling and he ended up hitting her in the face. It was one of those random boob-and-weave misfires. He was wearing his big college ring and it smacked her right below the eye. Her face swelled up like he had sent her into next Tuesday with a right hook. Sarah got real quiet before she broke wide open and went ballistic running up to her room holding her face. Mark almost puked. The only other time I saw him so nauseated was when I miscarried. He never hit women, and this event made him so remorseful that he went out to his shaping room and cried. I was stunned. It became clear that Mark loved his little girl, he was just having a problem liking her. We all were. Hell, I threw water in her face once. When I saw the hurt in her eyes I never did it again.
In truth, I was learning the definition of: Pick Your Battles. Sarah eventually learned it too.
Halloween
On a happier note, this was the year we started building our second house. It was on the other side of Wilmington closer to Carolina Beach. We were still doing the live surf report and I started doing it from CB and usually stayed to surf. Beach breaks like Sunskipper and Pelican Watch became my new local spots. At this point the Cove seemed like a long way to go unless the waves had enough north-east direction to them. When this isolated left point break was good it was really good, and I wouldn't hesitate to make the desolate drive.
Our new house
The locals didn't like me doing the surf reports from CB but I never let on where I was calling from. Personally, I didn't want the UNCW students coming to CB either. When Wrightsville Beach started charging to park, started surf zones, and the place blew up with the rich and famous, CB felt more soulish and was less of a hassle. I also liked the feeling of being one of the locals. Guys like Shay, Shawn, Mark (not my Mark), Mick, Surge and Fisher, who recently met with a sad earthly departure, were some of the bad Boyz of CB and they treated me like I was one of them. I felt honored. During the Hot Wax Challenges there was such a rivalry between the WB Boys and the CB Boyz that Mark and I started a team competition. The CB Boyz usually won. Their lifeguards were winning competitions too.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Wrightsville Beach surfers, if you like Duke Lacrosse players on 5'8"fishes.
That was also the year of...
Hurricane HugoHurricane Hugo was the costliest hurricane on record to hit the U.S. up until 1989. It strengthened into a category 5 hurricane well east of the Lesser Antilles as the pressure dropped to 918 millibars with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph. It weakened some before reaching the islands, then re strengthened near Puerto Rico. Near the island of Culebra, a ship reported a gust to 170 mph. Hurricane Hugo stayed east of the Bahamas and made landfall near Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. A Hurricane Hunter aircraft measured a wind of 161 mph at 12,000 feet just before landfall. Charleston, SC had a wind gust to 108 mph and Charlotte, NC a gust to 99 mph.
We were hit with strong winds and a big south swell!
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