Santa Barbara Area Surf Report

August Overview 1997 Overview

Date/Time: Thursday, August 7th, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
Location: Sequit, Zeros, Drainpipes
Weather: Overcast, looking tropically influenced, light variable air.
Conditions: Best at Zeros, sheet glass, pretty warbly and bumpy elsewhere.
Swell: Hurricane swell still holding strong, buoys pretty confused by all the swell shifting, reading as low as 1' at 12 s at one point.
Surf: Big summer surf, shoulder to head high with solid overhead to overhead and a half sets. Saw many cleanup waves pushing to double overhead at all three lineups.
Comments: Returning some gear to my parents after a long surf trip; will have a writeup of it soon in the source.

Made it to Secos to see the low tide working its magic along with the SSE direction of the swell; lots of closeouts and poor shape.

Zeros was looking good but crowded, with waves pushing wide of the point and breaking in a few sections all the way past Lifeguards. Nice but a bit too mushy for me.

Got some early lunch and watched the carnage at Drainpipes. Super hollow and fast, most barrels priming for a big spit and then shutting off into a closeout, blowing foam way out the back of the wave instead. Didn't see any broken boards and in the hour I watched I only saw one barrel made from start to finish. The door to the green room was enter-only today.

Paddled out at Sequit after finishing my lunch and had a go at some of the smaller waves which weren't closing out the whole point. Super fun big freight train walls that were very hard to make down the line. A few longboarders were making the best of it by catching the big sets as they hit the wavesailing reef. An amping session albeit a bit crowded with poor conditions.

Got some pictures of the action at various spots and have them online now in the gallery.


Santa Barbara Surfing -- Last updated 3/11/98.