For Captain Dan Schaefer and his wife Pamela, it was quite a boat ride into Gloucester, Massachusetts, for lunch on Friday.
"It was fun for me, not for her," Schaefer said. "About 4-5-footers."
Those waves, and the chance for dangerous rip currents, are expected to pick up going into the weekend. Hurricane Earl is not on track to hit New England, but the storm is big enough to lead the National Weather Service to issue a high surf advisory from Long Island, to the Cape and Islands, up to Cape Ann on the North Shore.
"Oh, yeah, I can't go into that water," said May Lanzilli of Winthrop. "They are too fierce, so I just look at them."
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Some people, like surfers at Good Harbor Beach, were looking on the bright side Friday.
"This is kind of the first fall swell that we have had, so everybody is really stoked," Ann Carlson said.
Adding to the concern, many beaches in New England are without lifeguards after Labor Day.
"If you find yourself at a beach that isn't lifeguarded, it is good to have somebody, a buddy system, if you are going swimming," Gloucester Harbormaster T.J. Ciarametaro said.
More on Hurricane Earl
Ciramentaro added that it is important to remember what to do if you find yourself caught in a rip current.
"If you do find yourself caught in a rip current, you do want to swim parallel to the beach. A lot of people will want to swim back into land, and they get fatigued, and then you can find yourself in a drowning situation," he said.
Lanzilli says she is just fine sitting on the beach.
"Oooo they were fierce, they were high, they were about five feet high," she said. "Beautiful. Just beautiful."
