I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “It only happens ‘once in a Blue Moon.’” Last night, August 30th 2023, was that occurrence. There was a full moon and it happened to be the second full moon in the same month making it a “Blue Moon”, it was also a Super Moon (when the Moon is closest to the Earth), making it a Blue Supermoon! With the expected extra brightness of the moonlight, as surfers we figured it’d make the ocean’s surface brighter and with that a night surf was on!

I sent out a message in the employee group chat that I’d be hitting The Drive at 10ish and everyone is welcome. I showed up at the shop at 10 and there was already a crew of employees, past and present, ready to rip. I opened up the doors and we grabbed a few boards from the back and my girlfriend grabbed the camera and we headed out.

Right around 10:30 as we headed out you could see a few small corners peeling along for 30-40 yards close to shore and the occasional waist-high closeout sets. Armed with foamies and middies we hit the water. It was glassy and mostly closeouts but we had ourselves a ball. It started out fairly bright with the moonlight, but quickly clouds came in and covered the moon. By 10:45 we were well on our way to having zero moonlight. It quickly devolved into a blindfolded demolition derby on surfboards with the occasional well ridden nugget. Burns were egregious and intentional, leashless boards were stolen, Oklahoma drills were attempted, the occasional peeler was ridden, it was all good fun. Unfortunately due to the lack of light, taking photos became an issue and what we ended up with is all we can ask for! The next Blue Supermoon happens in 2037, but the next full moon is September 29th so we’ll see you then!

This article was written by Ian Biley, you can find more articles by Ian and other authors here on the PB Surf Shop Blog.