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Santa Barbara Area Surf Report

  
    
Date/Time:   Tuesday, January 9th, 11:00 am - 3:00 pm  
    
Location:   Rincon  
    
Weather:   Variable mild winds, between rainstorms with the first of the New Year rolling through yesterday and another stronger one on its heels.  
    
Conditions:   Fair to poor, raw swell with shift and slop.  
    
Swell:   Strong WNW swell, 13+ ft at 14 s from 290 degrees on the outer buoys, as much as 9 ft at 14 s on the inside buoys.  
    
Surf:   Well overhead to overhead and a half, peaky and shifty, possibly some bigger sets out there.  
    
Comments:   Our first taste of real winter, with a rough uncultured swell rolling through. Rain. High tides and coastal flooding -- the playground of imported beach sand atop the cove this morning was half-eaten by the waves, the remaining half soiled by driftwood. Big surf in Ventura, roving and shifting sectiony peaks at C Street and Stables with very few people out.

The cove was really the only spot on the point that even looked decent, and I watched it for quite a while before deciding to paddle out. Did so at the Indicator and caught a few waves in to the rivermouth sections, which seemed to have the best shape and not too much of a crowd. Caught a few waves from there into the Cove lineups but never one all the way through to the freeway.

At some point the session turned into a paddling exercise. A very long, grueling paddling exercise with very few waves caught. Miss a few here, too far on the shoulder there, paddle up the point to get better position, and before long you're looking at the next section up. Eventually I made the mistake of paddling all the way up to the Indicator, only to be forced to paddle even more just to hold position! It was either that or be swept away like a leaf on my suddenly tiny-feeling 6'6". I wound up in some kind of fugue state, barely aware of the waves and hardly able to judge them well enough to catch one, though I somehow still had the strength to catch a few more. Then it was back to the paddling. Ah yes, true winter Rincon and the treadmill grind.

Fortunately I could still surf, and caught a medium-sized wave into the cove, which by mid-afternoon was cranking off an endless series of perfect overhead+ waves. Grabbed a couple uncontested head high waves on the inside and proned out after the second one down by the fire pit, unwilling to paddle any more.

 
    
   
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Created by Tim Maddux, courtesy of UCSB, CoE, ME, and CS. Last updated 1/10/2000.