Spent a little over a week visiting my friend Jake up in Seward, AK with the intention of getting some surfing in together as well. I was staying just south of town right on the water and was fortunate enough to have some sunny, mild weather.
I went for a some runs/hikes on a fantastic trail that followed a ridgeline then spit you out onto this beach in the following pic. The trail continued on for some miles and has some old WW2 bunkers. I didn't do that part of the trail though since you could only get to it at low tide and the timing never really worked out. Got some great views though:
Views from the cabin:
Not a bad view to wake up to
A spectacular moonrise one evening
The mountains reminded me of Kauai / Hawaii quite a bit, complete with rainbows! Mind boggling
Alaska is a somewhat fickle place for surf as the tidal range is pretty large - about a 10 - 12' difference in height between low and high. The break we were targeting only worked around low tide so we had to schedule around that. The first good looking day low tide was at about 4:30pm, which was a bit late in the day but still very doable. Jake just wrapped up his last tour guiding for his business, Jet Ski Seward Adventures.
The harbor
Our transport to the break was via jetskis. I hadn't ridden one before, but Jake gave me a crash course and it ended up being pretty intuitive. Jake towed the boards on his ski and I followed behind.
Loading up the skis
After a somewhat bumpy 30 minute ride or so we pulled up to the spot. It was firing! 5.5' @ 13 sec. A bit overhead with a few monster sets rolling through!
The session was epic - one for the books!
The above is a still from the Go Pro, which I hate surfing with but I'm glad I took it out! I made this little edit from the day's session:
Kinda does it justice. It was bigger than it looked! There were four other locals out who came in via boat. We were all hooting each other in to pretty much every wave. What a day! After a tiring ride back we rolled back in to the harbor after sunset with barely enough light to see. Yikes!
We had planned to hit it again the day after, but after an hour total of jet skiing plus the heavy session my back let me know in no uncertain terms that I'd be resting for a few days. I ended up mildly straining it but luckily didn't throw it out completely. A few days later we got in another day at the same spot. Smaller but still really fun (and not scary!) I was able to explore the beach a bit as well.
Getting our golf on at the Seward disc golf course
Lots of jellies around
Epic.
Jake stowing the skis for the season
I had planned to stay another week, but the surf forecast didn't look good, and things were starting to get moody so I decided to bounce a bit early.
