You know those days where you show up and sit in the sand, watching the surf for a bit before you paddle out? Trying to figure out what mood the ocean is in that particular morning; where waves are breaking; what they’re doing. Some mornings, it just looks weird. Jumbled. Morning sickness. But sometimes, those mornings produce a real diamond in the rough. Such was the case for Nathan Florence, who paddled out in weird conditions and found a wave that turned out to be so good he entered it into the Wave of the Winter contest. It was a runner at Backdoor that, by most surfers’ standards, would be deemed impossible. But somehow, amid a roar of cheers from the sand, Nathan emerged from Backdoor’s doggy door.