| Santa Barbara Area Surf Report | |||
| February Overview | 1999 Overview | ||
| Date/Time: | Wednesday, February 17th, 6:00 am - 7:00 am |
| Location: | Rincon to Ventura |
| Weather: | Mostly cloudy with no wind. Strong westerlies building into Goleta as I post this at 9 am. |
| Conditions: | Poor. Wind-warbly and sectioning. |
| Swell: | Already-peaked WNW wind and groundswells, 14-16 ft at 17-20 s on outer buoys. |
| Surf: | Chest to head high. |
| Comments: |
Huey doesn't care what time it is when the winds blow.
That combined with short daylight hours means slightly more
than half of our winter swells will peak during the middle
of the night. So it was with this fast-moving swell, which
landed at 9 pm on our local outer buoys, peaked by 2 am at
a very respectable 23 ft at 20 s, and by mid-morning was down
to 12-14 ft.
Yesterday things were looking great, with the swell rumbling down the buoys, the Mavericks contest given the green light, and the timing seemingly auspicious for the waves to peak at dawn. Had a hard time sleeping with all that going on, and by 6 am SurferBob and I were in the parking lot at Rincon with our semi-guns, privately worrying to ourselves that it could be too big, maybe we'd have to backpedal and surf Hammond's or Ledbetter. The Cove lot was empty. No worries, it's early yet. Looked like ALLEY OOP and the rest of the Ryders had already hit the water, so we spun around and pulled into the north lot to get a look at the Indicator and to suss the paddle-out through the heavy beachbreak. Bad sign: the lot's empty! The crew can't possibly have missed it... and where's that heavy beachbreak?!? It looks worse than Sunday, when the buoys were barely half the size they are now! We fidget, grapple with our dashed expectations, hope it's just a lull, watch some admittedly fun-looking shoulder to head high waves lurch in, and finally opt to bail on the Ryders and head onward to Ventura. Wasn't any better there, with the offshore wind just not cleaning up the burbling swell. As we pull into the C-Street lot, I turn to Robert: "You smell that?"Damn! I'm not sure what did it... maybe it was not bringing the 6'6" along as a backup, or packing the camera along, perhaps I made the mistake of passing the big buoys and big forecasts along to too many buddies, or maybe it was the tide... Too many superstitions to wonder about now as I hunker down with my lukewarm coffee and polish off the last of the donuts for my 2nd breakfast this AM. Laugh while you can, Huey, I'll be back... |