Santa Barbara Area Surf Report
    
  March Overview 2000 Overview  
    
Date/Time: Friday, March 17th, 2:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Location: Rincon
Weather: Clear skies with strong shifty winds coming mainly from the west.
Conditions: Windswelly and wind-bumpy, fair to poor.
Swell: Combination of windswell and new WNW groundswells, combined seas 12 ft at 17 s on outer buoys.
Surf: Waist to shoulder high with some head high sets.
Comments: I needed a break from the lab, and so did SurferBob. After some difficulty getting our schedules coordinated, we got to Rincon at around noon. A bit disappointed, we pressed on to C Street, but the wind sent us back.

Best waves were in the rivermouth, shifty bowls on the drops and reeling for a couple hundred yards. Longer lines in the cove but very crowded -- insanely crowded, especially for such moderate surf in such poor conditions. I had a hard time there and got scraps for the second half of my session, while Robert seemed a bit more stoked about the whole thing. Not sure if he was really getting more big waves or if it was just that he hadn't been out in the good swells this season.

Barrels over the sandbars but couldn't make it out of any. The biggest drop I had, solid overhead, turned inside out over the bar, pulled in but things went bad real quick as the lip got all sandy, mutated, and pinched off. Trapped, tumbled, bounced once or twice off the bottom.

Lovely pink and orange sunset with the glowing orb setting right over the tip of the point. Last wave we both got, me coming from behind the water and then trading a few criss- crossing cutbacks in to the sandbar.


Santa Barbara Surfing -- Last updated 3/18/2000.