Santa Barbara Area Surf Report |
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| August Overview | 2000 Overview | ||
| Date/Time: | Wednesday, August 2nd, 4:00 pm - 8:00 pm |
| Location: | Secos / Arroyo Sequit / Leo Carrillo |
| Weather: | Tropical, variable westerly winds but mostly glassing off. Fabulous sunset over Pt. Mugu with a thunderstorm passing by east-to-west, spitting off purple and orange lightning bolts and following me all the way home that evening. |
| Conditions: | Good. |
| Swell: | Slowly fading southern hemi but still good, 3 ft at 14 s from 180 degrees. |
| Surf: | Overhead to overhead and a half. |
| Comments: |
Things weren't looking good as I left the office early today,
windy both locally and on the cams. By the time I reached
Carpinteria, however, and definitely by Rincon, it was glassy!
Yes!
Only a few people out in the water as I suited up, tide still pretty low. I skirted the rocks down by the tideline as I walked to my paddle-out spot under the main lifeguard tower, and then doubled back to help some kids and their mom who'd decided to climb over the top before realizing how rocky and how big the drop had become. This latest swell had pulled away about 3 or 4 vertical feet of sand, making even the no-worries paddle out a little rocky. Got a couple of cuts. With the preliminaries out of the way, I paddled out and immediately noted how deep everyone was sitting. Bare rocks exposed on every wave as it sucked out. Third reef going dry and being used as a lineup to paddle in front of like the big rock usually is. Again, most of the waves were closing out, but a few choice ones went pretty far. All of them were fast. Spent some time playing around by the windsurf rock and got a couple of big drops that didn't really go anywhere. My board lacked the volume to get me through the whitewater and reform to the inside, and the paddle back out through the sets was horrendous. After that I hung out inside of the third reef and waited for the smaller, better-shaped waves, and even backdoored a few of the bigger ones. Didn't much care for doing the latter as I couldn't get enough speed to beat the section... the guys who usually do this are either more talented or riding more foam. Or both. Best wave was the last one, one of best waves I saw all afternoon and the best I have personally surfed all summer. Overhead and a half, fast, and all the way through. Not closing out but fast, not boring and burgery but hollow. Like I dream of this place being and like it has far too seldom been this season. |