Georgia Magazine - June 2018 - 36

(Continued from page 34)

olina tournament that was canceled
after a large shark rose from the water
against a young surfer. (He escaped.)
And it's a given: Tybee surfers eventually get stung by jellyfish,
but the stings soon lessen and rarely
keep surfers out if waves are good.
(They recommend dosing stings with
Tiger Balm-brand ointment and vinegar spray.)
Locals joke about "Lake Tybee"-
"because it couldn't be any flatter,"
Muenckler says.
But it suits some. Hannah Hall, a
nursing student at Georgia Southern
University in Statesboro, doesn't need
waves while relaxing on North Beach
with her pink-and-neon cheetahprint longboard beside her.
"All my worries just go away,"
she says, praising the beach. "It does
something internally."

Make New
Friends
Just

W HER E

en pat h
off the beat

history AN D nature flow

DiscoverAlbanyGA.com

Local Roots
& Recipes

4/18/18

For more than a century, the family
farmers at Lane Southern Orchards
have harvested Georgia Grown
peaches and pecans. Authentic
family recipes are used to prepare
home-style southern specialties for
breakfast and lunch in the Peachtree
Café and sweet treats anytime in our
onsite bakery and gourmet gift shop.
You must try Homemade Peach Cobbler,
Pecan Pie and Peach Ice Cream.

.com
Open Daily Year Round

Five Minutes West of I-75 at Exit 142
36

'I didn't expect it to be this good'

But for wave riders, an open
mind pays off. Hall's boyfriend, Jake
Luke of Fort Myers, Fla., dashes into
the water on a skimboard.
"This breaks the longest ... peels
a lot longer," he says, comparing the
3:43 PM
surf to elsewhere in Georgia and
Florida.
He knows that world-champion
skimboarder Austin Keen hails from
Tybee. (Muenckler remembers Keen
surfing and skimboarding around
10th Street back in the day.) But Tybee still surprised Luke: "I didn't expect it to be this good."
Tybee charmed Susan Casey, too,
who praises the waves-"a lot bigger
when you're out there"-and the talent near the jetty.
Tybee surfers do well against
athletes from more well-known surfing spots (Outer Banks, N.C., and
Jacksonville, Fla.) because they're
used to inconsistent waves and know
how to make the best of it, according to Buelterman, the Tybee mayor.
He mentions several young local surfers who have done well in outside
events.
People would become believers in the talent of local surfers after watching Anna Bloess steer her
More online at www.georgiamagazine.org

board on a wave.
"She can rip on a big day, and
she can rip on a small day," her father
says. He likes how she gives Florida
girls "a run for their money."
Things are different in Florida,
right? Better waves and better surfers?
Anna Bloess corrects that assumption: "Better waves and more
surfers."
Freelance writer Leslie Moses lives
in Savannah.

Surf's up!
Where to surf
* North Beach: The best time to surf the
north end is about an hour or two after
low tide. It's when watersports lovers get
their fill until the North Beach "bowl" fills
up and high tide laps closer to the dunes.
* South Beach: Tybee's other surf spot
is by the pier around 16th Street. To surf
there, bring a board about two hours
before high tide.

When to surf
Tybee surfers find suitable waves if the
conditions below exist. To see the indicators, visit bit.ly/tybeeindicators and scroll
down.
* Swell height: should be at least 3 feet
* Wave height: 5 to 6 feet
* Dominant wave period and average
period: Both should be at 10 seconds or
more. "That means there's a lot of energy
out there," Tybee surfer John Bloess
says.
* Water temperature: Surfers generally
don't need a wetsuit or spring suit (half a
full wetsuit) when the water reaches
70 degrees. For the most part, no wetsuits are needed from May 1 to
Nov. 1. Yet even in a wetsuit, visiting
surfer Susan Casey called the water in
the low 60s "nippy."

Learn how to surf
* Hot Sushi's Happy Surf Camp Aloha!,
happy-surfing.info, email: gofor.happy
surfing@gmail.com
* Tybee Surf Lessons, tybeesurflessons.
com, (808) 385-5364
* Tybee Surf School, tybeesurfschool.
net, (912) 704-4821
GEORGIA MAGAZINE

http://www.DiscoverAlbanyGA.com http://www.bit.ly/tybeeindicators http://tybeesurflessons.com http://tybeesurflessons.com http://tybeesurfschool.net http://tybeesurfschool.net http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - June 2018