Santa Barbara Area Surf Report

August Overview 1998 Overview

Date/Time: Monday, August 3rd, 6:00 am - 9:00 am
Location: Secos / Arroyo Sequit / Leo Carrillo
Weather: Thick soggy marine layer blanket burying the coast, light southeasterly winds.
Conditions: Glassy and perfect worsening to fair on the inside as those weird winds kick a regular chop into the lineup.
Swell: Solid and building out of the SSW (200), 3 ft at 20 s swells last night and this morning, up to 4 ft at 20 s swells as I post this report. 3.5 ft at 20 s on Harvest, some RMS math indicating 1 ft swells from Estelle who 120 kt. max sustained winds a couple of days ago; her influence is showing but not the dominant swell by far.
Surf: Chest high to overhead and a half on the sets. Wrapping strangely and shifting with SSE influence definitely visible.
Comments: Tried to improve on yesterday's dawn patrol by mobilizing faster. Knew from the buoys by the evening that the swell had landed, and was ready to go. Only flaw: slept through 40 minutes of the alarm, need to crank the volume higher or switch to a more aggressively-programmed station. Unfortunately, either solution will definitely put me under duress from the cohabitant of my bed.

Still got out the door quickly enough to match yesterday's water entry time, this time with the 6'6" in hand. Almost too little board today; wouldn't have minded the 7'2" for some of the bigger waves which I dropped late and had speed-chatters on the entire way. Solid waves breaking hard from rock to rock, a very uncivilized session today as compared to the longboard mellowness of the day before. The ones that did go all the way through were perfect from takeoff to finish, and the closeouts were thick and taking no prisoners. One set of ten or more of them cleared the inside lineup completely, each one totally unrideable except for a drop. I preferred to get the smaller ones of the bunch, still solid overhead and very fun and not quite so punishing.


Santa Barbara Surfing -- Last updated 8/3/98.