| Santa Barbara Area Surf Report | |||
| March Overview | 1999 Overview | ||
| Date/Time: | Sunday, March 21st, 6:00 am - 9:00 am and 12:00 noon - 2:00 pm |
| Location: | Rincon |
| Weather: | Clear skies early with approaching clouds and potential for rain. Moderate westerlies by afternoon. |
| Conditions: | Excellent, worsening to fair by the afternoon with high tide and wind bump. Blown out atop the point. |
| Swell: | Long-period WNW groundswell, 10 ft at 20-25 s on outer buoys. |
| Surf: | Setty, with head high to overhead waves and very long waits. Seemed to drop into the early afternoon and then rebuild. |
| Comments: |
Dawn patrolled in the cove in anticipation of some excellent
surf, got in early to beat the first heat of the contest
which had Matt Moore's squad with a lot of local talent.
Best waves of the day were early on, fast and hollow across
the sandbars. Most of the waves weren't quite big enough
to break on the outside peak, instead coming into the sandbar,
walling, and pitching. Out of position a lot as a result.
Things looked better up atop the point, with guys getting
wide open barrels in the rivermouth on waves pushing to
half again overhead. By the time Matt's heat started and
I paddled up, the ocean went flat and the few of us out
at the indicator spent an hour or so with only a handful
of surfable waves coming through.
Isla Vista Surfrider's second heat came in the afternoon, and while conditions were worse with the high tide and wind, we got over a hundred waves in an hour and won the contest in our class (non profits). Again, my best waves I got while not wearing a jersey. Stayed out through the next heat and got some of the outside bombs which were quite surfable despite the high tide and wind. The Clean Water Classic raised over $4000 which went directly to pay for the engineering study of putting the homes on the point on sewers and for DNA testing of the upper creek to better determine pollution sources. |