| December Overview | 1997 Overview |
| Date/Time: | Thursday, December 18th, 10:00 am - 12:00 noon |
| Location: | Stables |
| Weather: | Rain, at times quite hard. Clearing by noon. |
| Conditions: | Excellent, light offshore frontal winds. |
| Swell: | New NW swell, 8-12 ft at 14 s on outer buoys. Not showing much on Santa Monica this morning, 3 ft 14 s. |
| Surf: | Waist to chest high with lined-up shoulder high sets. |
| Comments: |
Things looking quite junky in town and all the way to Rincon;
by La Conchita they'd cleaned up again. Kept going along
the old road to the fairgrounds where I expected to turn around
and head home. A light crowd and fun-looking set got me
into the water.
Pushing tide making a weak but persistent current up the point; had to be savvy and stay in position or be dragged into the dead zone between the rivermouth and the lineup. The waves improved and the crowd lightened through the morning, reaching their peak and low point as the rain peaked. If I didn't know any better, I might have thought the waves swelling with the downpour, bulging in size with fresh water. For about a half hour it rained so hard that the few of us out were nearly blind, both from the rainfall and from the upspray caused by raindrop impacts. The waves kept coming, though, fast and steep, 50-yard rides very common. Went in after getting one all the way to the beach. Nobody on the bike path except some young seagull-sized birds, only not seagulls that I've seen, with red-tipped beaks and grey or brown plumage, with a swallow-like tail. NWS is forecasting increased surf with gale-force westerlies into this evening. |