Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Comments: My last few times I had surfed, way back in July, were full of defeat, driving all the way to Ventura to find small junk in overcast weather. Then it got even flatter and then I headed out of town. Back in town and it still looked flat. My boss was telling me about epic day after epic day down in the greater malibu area but that wasn't going to happen midweek for me. The forecast sites were keying in on the seasons first NW swell, just a little storm in Alaska that might bring something to NorCal but likely nothing to us. Some tiny bit of long period energy did show up on the buoys around here though so I forced myself to go look.

Sure enough there wasn't anything down there. A few folks were longboarding at Deveraux and that actually looked like fun but I had my shortboard on me so I walked to Sands and was going to go out no matter what. It was high tide and there were a couple of waves but they were breaking real close in. Waves were few and far between, small with short rides. I'm not sure if it was swell from Alaska, windswell, or boat wakes. I headed out to a lineup of only 3-4 guys and started catching waves like they were going out of style. Usually if I haven't surfed for a few weeks I have a pretty sad session, and besides the occaisonal slip on my board that needed waxing, I was actually able to competently surf.

Surfing is great. One short session in piddly waves managed to erase any amount of tension. Afterwards I was driving 5mph on the freeway and casually wondering why everyone is so uptight.