Southern Waters Blog

Stop by your favorite Southern Waters Outfitters shop and check the latest selection of ski and winter wear from The North Face.  We proudly carry the deepest selection of their jackets on the Gulf Coast.  This includes the most popular jacket on the planet….the North Face Denali.  Women’s Men’s and Kid’s sizes available at all of our locations.  Hurry in and get yours because they go fast!  Sign up as a friend of ours on myspace and get 10% off!  Just mention that you signed up when you visit our shops and get 10% off….it’s that easy.

This last friday night Mitch Cobb and his Southern Waters Outfitters super late model stock car showed again that he is a force to be reckoned with.  Friday night at Pensacola’s Five Flags Speedway, Mitch qualified eighth, which was kind of a let down, but Mitch still started out like he was a leader.  The race was super exciting, with only one short yellow flag for a few laps.  All of the cars had a great night of racing for sure.  Mitch worked his way to fifth place quickly, and then slowly picked his way up to third. Mitch pitted with the leaders around lap 70 and with an exceptional pit stop came out to restart in first.  He led for several laps then slipped back to third.  With about ten laps to go through heavy traffic he passed Eddie Mercer to take second place.  He continued to gain ground on leader Ryan Crane and was only a couple of car lengths back coming out of turn four when he crossed the finish line for a close second place.

Saturday night in Mobile Mitch won the pole position only to be disqualified by the “after qualifing inspection” for supposedly having to big a carberator.  Never mind it is the same one he has always used in Mobile and has always passed inspection.  After changing to a smaller carberator, he was forced to start as the last car.  He still managed to fight his way back to 8th place by the end of the race.  Mitch was dissapointed at the officials ruling on the qualifing penalty but put it behind him to concentrate on the next race.

Fall has finally arrived and with it cooler mornings and night.  Best of all, less risk of hurricanes.  Speaking of “canes”.  If you missed out on the hurricane Ike surf action you missed some awesome surf.   Here are a couple of photo’s I took at the west jetty in Orange Beach two days before Ike hit Texas.

Surfers from as far away as Louisiana and Tennessee were gathered at the West Jetty.  Even as crowded as it was, the local boys were pretty cool with the crowd.  The line up was just as good if not better two days after Ike went ashore.

Hurricane Ike added more misery to the island nation of Haiti yesterday.  Massive flooding and at least 70 deaths, which brings the total of Hurricane deaths this year to over 300.  Food stocks are running low as well as potable fresh water.  We have researched someway to help this poor country of peasant farmers and have come across a highly respected organization that helps Haitians help themselves as well as provides emergency relief in times like these.  Please visit http://www.lambifund.org/ to find out more.  While your there please make a donation….even 10 bucks, the cost of a couple of beers or latte’s will go a long way.

O.K. this is getting ridiculous.  I am getting pretty tired of writing about nothing but the weather.  It seems the Gulf Coast will get yet another hurricane.  Hurricane Ike is planning on paying us a visit this coming weekend.  Those poor people in the Turks and Caicos islands have been getting hammered for like three weeks straight.  Jim Cantorie needs to take a crew to those islands next week and help those folks dig out their houses.  That is assuming they are still standing.  They’re probably starving in Haiti and more than likely have no clean drinking water, and it’s still not over. 

Hurricane Gustav while reeking havoc on Louisiana brought great surf condtions to Orange Beach, AL after it passed.  The west jetty was on fire yesterday with clean 3-5 foot swells coming out of the south west.  The line up was kinda crowded (naturally) but everyone behaved and some great rides were had by all.  Surfers from as far away as Louisiana were taking part.  No less than half of the guys that showed up were from Pensacola and Gulf Breeze Fl.  Sterling Spencer was even spotted.  Today should bring more waves, although they will be slightly smaller.  Perfect for great longboard rides.

Here we go again.  Those of us on the Gulf Coast are once again anxiously waiting on the arrival of yet another tropical system…this time it looks like a full fledged hurricane.  As of this morning hurricane Gustav appears to be headed up what we call up this way the “Hurricane Highway”.  Forcast this morning puts landfall somewhere between central Texas and Panama City Beach, Fl. 

Those of us along the coast of Alabama expect as usual for the thing to run right under the Perdido Bay Bridge, maybe taking out the remnants of the Florabama Lounge.  Of course this would convieniently give them a fresh reason not to rebuild the bar and keep operating (4 years now) as a drunk circus under the various tents that make up the “lounge”.

  Fishheads and other “boat trash” in marinas along the coast are already re-stocking their liquor cabinets,and beer coolers as well as arranging “dates” to take along in anticipation of Gustav’s arrival.  Once your boat is tied down up some obscure creek, you’ve got to have something to do in between watching the weather channel and adjusting your lines as the water rises. 

It would be great if by some outside chance Gustav ambled over toward some un-populated stretch of Mexico, maybe around Tampico.  Actually, I don’t wish it on anyone…….God save them if it does…  

It would make for some killer surf for us instead of a blow out Labor Day weekend.  Speaking of which.  It looks like our Labor Day business will be down the tubes, so…we’ve decided to start our Labor Day sale today.  For you lucky few who actually read this, get by one of our shops and take advantage of super cheap prices on cool stuff.  Or…. you could, wait and take your chances on us recieving a direct hit by Gustav and join the looters for some “really discounted merchandise”.

Shop now while you can so we can pay for this stuff!!!! 

Well, we missed out on any wave action associated with Tropical Storm Fay, and it looks like we’ll be getting the remnants of her an a lot of rain.  It seems that Fay is about to make an abrupt left hand turn and barrel across the Florida Panhandle dumping more rain on top of what we’ve been getting for the last couple of weeks.  Surf prospects look pretty doubtful for the upper Gulf coast, but for those who want to venture off, St Augustine should have some decent surf once the rain and wind move off.