The East Santa Barbara Channel buoy is offline and gone forever. The Minerals Management Service is the agency which operates the buoy, not NOAA or NWS, and that agency has decided to move it north to the Santa Maria basin. This makes sense since nearly all of the oil platforms in the channel will no longer be operational by the year 2000, and the MMS buoys are essentially oil/gas industry buoys.
Bummer! So, what do we do now? My suggestion is to stay tuned up on the Santa Monica Basin buoy. This buoy reads attenuated N. Pacific swell much like the East Channel did, with the possible drawback of getting blocked by the islands on some WNW-ish swell directions. Don't be fooled by it during the summer, of course, when it is the primary indicator for south swells that never reach into S.B. proper. The other alternative is to stay tuned to the So. Cali. Swell Model, or learn to read the northern buoys and estimate the attenuation oneself due to swell direction.
The forecast for tomorrow looks to be good. The NWS is issuing special weather statements... a west swell of 6-7' should be inside the channel by tomorrow late and possibly pushing to 8'-10' by Monday, depending on how a pair of low pressure systems interact. Stay tuned to your weather radio and your local NOAA/NWS website.