Tomrrows Best Bet
Looks like hip to chest high waves expected tomorrow morning at the Jetty. All north facing beaches are going to be flat.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
Santa Cruz - Pleasure Point
After checking out the "West Side" which seemed to be dead, we decided to surf at Pleasure Point "in front of O'Neil's House." Nice sunny and warm day with long 3-5 minutes wait between sets, but when they come, they come in 4 to 6 waves a set with chest to shoulder high. Further west at the point they were getting up to head-high waves. It is always a pleasure to surf here because of nice gentle long break line that the area creates very easy to take off and long-ride waves. This has been one of our favorite spot. As the tide came gotten lower the waves started to back off a bit, but we had a lot of good rides. At this spot, it is possible to trim the board direction well after take off that allows me to take a longer ride. Wish I can do the same with the waves here. We took a lunch break at Pleasure Pizza with our wetsuit on still, and then we went back in to the water.
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Montara & Linda Mar
Tried Montara for a few minutes on 7'6 board. But the shape was too big and crashing too close to the shore. Also the shore break condition was making it difficult to get in & out of the beach. Not taking off the wetsuit, went to Linda Mar. It was 7:45 a.m. and the place was packed already. The condition here was mixed with a period of very choppy but shoulder to head high wavefaces coming. There were some long boarders getting good rides on the outside. As for me, I had a number of good take-offs on these waves, but the ride did not continue. Riding on 7'6, again is amazing that it can take off on these steep waves no problems. It was a good sunny morning, and was a lot of fun to be there to watch all levels of people.
Conditions looks promising, I am going to check out Montara (since it looked good yesterday) and the Jetty. More after surfing.
Tide 3.4 ft, falling
Winds offshore 3 mph
North swell 3.7 ft 9 sec NW 315 °
South swell 1.7 ft 20 sec S 182 °
Friday, May 09, 2003
Surfing at Jetty This Morning
The waves were very small with a max of hip to chest this morning with practially no wind, so I took out the 8'6 board. Surprisingly, this morning, I did not have very much success catching. This is in contrast with on 5/4 where I caught so many. One of the problems I was facing this morning was that I can catch it but soon enough the front of the board is digging into the water and no complete take off. I have actually been experiencing this with 8'6 lately so I need to figure out why this is. I must be standing way too far front probably. I do not know riding on a shorter board is causing this issue.
@Jetty
Tide 3.2 ft, falling
Winds sideshore 7 mph
North swell 4.8 ft 8 sec NW 307 °
South swell 1.3 ft 15 sec SW 240 °
Thursday, May 08, 2003
PM Surf Report
Just checked the NOAA wave model, and looks like we have a bit more North stuff coming in. This is supposed to be the 8 second wind-swell. May try out LM tomorrow morning if the condition improves. The South stuff is also supposed to pick up toward Sunday. We will see..
Surf Report @ Jetty
Did not go, start to rain really heavy. But the now the Sun is poking through at 8:44.
Huge wind is gone all last night is at this moment. Raining now. Might hope for more waves. Linda Mar is estimated to be in poor condition.
Wind 2 MPH
North swell 4.9 ft 8 sec NW 315 °
South swell 1.8 ft 15 sec SW 242 °
Medium tide going into low.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Surf Report From HMB Jetty This Morning
Current Estimated Condition @ Jetty
North swell 1.4 ft 9 sec NW 303 °
South swell 2.8 ft 17 sec SW 216 °
Min Tide
Winds sideshore 2 mph
The condition was fair with only good waves breaking near the jetty where a dozen long board people were gathering around into a failry small take-off zone. As with yeaterday, the tide was too low and the swells were also too low to make a longer lineup. Waiting and waiting around and caught only a few this morning. When the condition becomes quiet like this, I usually paddle around to get a good exercise. The water was a bit cold and supposed to be 52 degrees. Could have used the 8'6 board in this type of situation. It appears that a lot of regular Linda Mar crowd showed up here this morning. Montara and Linda Mar were almost completely flat.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
You are a Surfing Addict If You Answer YES to more than 3 of these questions
Slightly modified from California Council of Problem Gambling
1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to surfing?
2. Has surfing ever made your home life unhappy?
3. Did surfing affect your reputation?
4. Have you ever felt remorse after surfing?
5. Did you ever surf to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?
6. Did surfing cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
7. After missing a wave did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?
8. After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?
9. Did you often surf until your last dollar was gone?
10. Did you ever borrow to finance your surfing?
11. Have you ever sold anything to finance surfing?
12. Were you reluctant to use "surfing money" for normal expenditures?
13. Did surfing make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?
14. Did you ever surf longer than you had planned?
15. Have you ever surfed to escape worry or trouble?
16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance surfing?
17. Did surfing cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
18. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to surf?
19. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of surfing?
20. Have you ever considered self-destruction at Lanes or surf at Mavericks as a result of your surfing?
More Update on the HMB Buoy
Got more response from NDBC this morning as following.
Thanks for your interest and desire to educate the public. I think the vandal
is a fishermen shooting at seals, and, somehow, I don't think they are the type
that reads the San Jose Mercury or San Francisco Examiner. I just don't think a
rousing good public relations campaign will do any good. We have contacted the
Coast Guard after each incident.
The NWS office in Monterrey (they produce forecast for the entire Bay area)
consulted with a group of local mariners and decided that we would move the buoy
about 5 miles west of its location. They felt that this might be enough of a
move to get it away from active fishing grounds and make it more difficult for the
vandal. The buoy is scheduled for deployment during the second week of June.
Surf Report
Surfed Jetty. Used 7'0. Rapid crasher. The jetty end was getting 1.0 - 1.5 OVH level on some sets. Some good people are getting very nice rides. I stayed on the south side where the sets were of bucket dump quality so not much surfing. I think that the tide was too low this morning to take advantage of the 20 second swell.
Current swells:
North swell 3.3 ft 9 sec NW 320 °
South swell 3.1 ft 17 sec SW 219 °
Tide 0.6 ft, falling
Winds sideshore 4 mph
Going to check out Jetty.
Monday, May 05, 2003
Why the HMB Bouy Is Broken
It has been since November when the bouy here has been out of comission. I finally aksed the people at NDBC (National Data Bouy Center) about why it has been taking so long to resume the operation of this specific bouy. I got the answer and it was ourageous to know that the reason why this is broken is not because of the nature but humans.
The answer:
Thank you for your interest in our NDBC web site. The buoy at 46012 has
failed because of gunshots. This is the sixth time
in the last four years that the buoy has failed because of gunshot punctures.
Evidently, people are firing at the seals and hitting the buoy. Not only does
it cost the government $80,000 to repair the buoy each time it is hit, it
creates a safety hazard. When water floods the buoy, the battery corrosion
creates hazardous hydrogen gas that is explosive. We have retrieved the buoy
and are not going to be placing a buoy back on that station again. We've
asked the NWS Monterey/San Francisco Bay office to work with their marine users
to recommend another location.
NDBC Webmaster
No surfing today
As usual, Mondays are Surfrider water sampling day plus a rest for my shoulder and arm muscles. This morning the waves were all blown out with a prevailing offshore wind probably 25 to 30 mph.
On the way back home, I drove by (1) to check out LM and the Jetty. I was hoping that with a 20 second swell from South the Jetty might be nice but it was essentially blown out. Nobody was getting any ride. It looked more like someone has spewed a bucket of water on a street on each set. Immediate crash downs.
Sunday, May 04, 2003
Jetty Today
Surfing at Jetty this afternoon was fun. Took out the 8'6 board and it was a blast with hit to chest set waves coming in almost 20 seconds or so. Found several good breaking spots and breaks were happening further out, so there have been a potential of riding longer than usual. There were mainly two lineups, the usual jetty side group and then the "south of rip rap" group. As usual, I surfed the south side since it is less crowded and also the waves are less steeper.
The onshore wind was blowing a bit hard and also there were a quite a bit of "junky" wind swells coming in. But in these conditions, there are second the even third reforms that happen closer to the shore so it is fun to dodge these wind-swell ripples and zoom left & right to go quite a bit. At times the waves were very steep that made me wish I had shorter board on, but just wait for the next mellow set and then just take off.
In a period of about 2 hours, I have caught about 20 waves today. I am definitely now riding on a lot more waves than most people on the beach. There is one another woman who was catching just as many or more than I did, but the rest of the folks sat "way too out" and did not do much surfing. I got so many waves and paddle backs that by the time I am done, I was so exhausted, and took a good and deep nap for good 1 hour after I came home. I have not been this exhausted since the camp in December where we surfed in the morning, eat lunch, then nap, then go out again!
Clio brought back the fixed board for me today from Santa Cruz, and now I am back with all 3 boards to chose from. It would have been fun to use the 7'6 in these kind of conditions as it is easier to turn.
North swell 2.7 ft 8 sec NW 301 °
South swell 2.8 ft 20 sec SW 205 °
It appears that medium incoming tide seems to work the best at the Jetty in my experience.
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