The photo that sparked my blog

Just in case you are interested in a long story about why this website is here for you to read…

I was born and raised in the mountains of San Diego and stumbled upon surfing in high school. I was quickly drawn into the sport and have had many opportunities arise due to my involvement. Fast forward to 2010. Ocean water temperatures were seasonally low in San Diego that summer so I left town and headed to Puerto Escondido for a month(which is never short on swell and warm water). I had an awesome time but upon returning to San Diego I quickly realized that the water was still unseasonably cool and I wanted to leave again.  A quick surfline check revealed there was a hurricane tracking up the eastern seaboard. Conveniently at this same time my Dad was visiting my Aunt who lived in New Hampshire(not near the beach, but YES, it has a coastline haha). I had surfed the east coast of Japan and Australia but never our own east coast here in the U.S.A., so I bought a one way ticket and Dad picked me up at the airport. Within an hour he had delivered me to the beach and I was in a barrel. We wound up cruising the coast for about six weeks during hurricane season and by the time my birthday came around in October I had made enough friends and thought so highly of the area I wanted to rent a place for the winter and see if I could get used to surfing in the extreme winters of the northeast.

Needless to say I rented a place in Hampton Beach, NH for the winter and everybody in San Diego was asking me “what the hell are you doing?”, “does it even have a coast?”.  Anyway, I was soon moved in and ventured out for my first winter surf.  The water was colder than I had imagined and the outside air temperature was hovering in the single digits. When I exited the water I removed the fins from my board and in the gaps where water normally dripped free was frozen salt water. I took a photo and sent it to friends. Lots of people were shocked and interested in what I was doing, so shortly thereafter I created this blog. It’s goal was to originally show anyone who wanted to know, “what the schnell?” I was doing in New Hampshire. I was surprised by the traffic my site was getting so I continued to document my entire winter there.

Since, I have moved back to California and acquired a greater interest in photography of nature and surfing than riding a board myself. Now a days I share recent or relevant photographic or video work of mine, which continues to have strong ties to the ocean. If you’d like, you can watch “Cold as Schnell” as featured on surfline. It is located at the bottom of my “videos” page and is a quick recap of some of the great waves and conditions I encountered that memorable winter in New England. Enjoy.

Ryan Schnell