Hey y’all, this past Thursday (Oct, 27) was special. Most days out on the lakes are special. But this was reaaally special. You dig?

The day began bright (dark) and early at Marie Curtis Park in Mississauga, where our crew met up with a couple of repeat students and a newcomer on the lakes, who had some surfing under her belt in the past and was looking for an entry point to the lakes.

The wind was howling strong East all through the night and continued with full gale force that morning. We are talking buckets thrown on the pier. After a quick recon mission we settled on the venue for that morning's lessons and class was in session. Starting with a much needed warm up (in the rain and wind) and some yoga to start the flow, our students picked up where they last left off in the water.

Without fail everyone in our group that morning got to their feet and took some fresh ones to the beach. After a little panini break we were back in the water calling our students into some more waves. Braving the storm our students surfed until they were completely knackered and called it a day. Two words to sum up that morning’s Surfari: Stoke and Cajones.

Feeling the force of that East we knew that we needed to get in on the action, so we invited our students to join us over at the Cove to watch our session and have a peek at the potential our lakes can offer up.

 Upon arrival at the Cove, the hard East was tearing up the main beach, leaving it relatively unsurfable. Anyone familiar with the spot knows that means one thing. Mini-Mavs is on. The double spot. Two of our instructors headed out back to sample the goods while I joined one of our more advanced students of the day to call her into some waves as she took a crack at the inside section. Respect.

An hour and a half into the session, and our lovely student calls it a day for some well deserved rest. The day is fully realized now, and the wind, as forecasted turns hard 180 West. This can mean a few things on the lakes; either things go flat, or as we were #blessed to find out things go offshore and we get perfect ocean like conditions.

Paddling out back to meet the rest of the crew my first duck dive was through a well-overhead set that greeted me with a personalized offshore rainstorm upon punching through the back. That feeling. Oh baby. It was on. Big, glassy, powerful.

Dropping into my first left I felt myself buzzing down the line. Coming off the back I looked across the lineup and I could see that everyone was riding that same high. We were surfwoke. Our resident in-water surf photographer Lucas ‘Flipperman’ Murnaghan was sitting in the shoulder to capture the action, which there was plenty of. Now some people may read this and think it is just some lake kook glorifying some above average mush, but this was a good day by any standard and thanks to Flipperman I don’t need to prove nothin.’

After trading waves and howling until our voices were gone and our arms reached maximum noodleage we each took one in, to reconvene and have a half coherent conversation in the parking lot as we doffed our wettys. As we headed in we saw some of the usual suspects gearing up, ready for some action, as the West was still strong but Mini-Mavs cooled down a bit. As we were changing our good pal Russell came by and said “You boys have got to see this, come over to The Cove.” When we asked him if it was good he looked at us like we were morons. After casually walking down to the shore we were left with our jaws gaping. #LAKESLABS.

Perfect almond shaped barrels in the beige waters of Scarborough. NO WAY. To amp things up even more, Aussie transplant and seasoned ripper, Jarrath Wilkinson was taking shelter from the storm deep in the comfort of the grey room. Speechless (well actually we were yelling profanities). We stood watching until our hands were numb and cheered like a proper peanut gallery from on top of the rocks. In order to gradually integrate ourselves back into the real world we decided to stop at a local pub for libations and some sandwiches as we laughed and WTF’d about the day’s offerings. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do a Thursday.

NO BAD DAYS.

Words by Surf Instructor Elie Landesberg. Photographs by Lucas Murnaghan.