Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Comments:

A morning session centered around a 6.0+ high tide doesn't sound smart, but when the swell is this big, it manages to push through despite all that water. The parking lot at Campus was a zoo yesterday. The university has unwittingly made the lineup better at campus by only offering a few coin operated spots and no more free parking before 8:00. Luckily for me, Greggory had 19 hours left on his "G" pass for the month and was willing to burn as many as he could for this swell. Even with that pass though a lot of faculty and staff park in that lot and then head off to campus. Can't there be some rule, you can't park in that lot and then head inland? I hope when the new lot is built more parking is available. Although it'll be more crowded.

I had the LB and the SB and in the spirit of surfing with Greggory and took out the LB. The point was firing: fast, sectiony and spitting barrells at times. Where G and I sat was not as big nore as consistent but we did have an impressive record of sharing waves in the semi-crowded lineup. A current was pulling people away from the ideal takeoff spot and with a bit of triangulation we found we could take off in the sweet spot leaving bewildered people stuck in whitewash. In the crowds willingness to go deeper and deeper on each other it wasn't a problem to sit in what looked like a submissive position but end up raking in the sets that would swing in outside.

Waves were fast and fun. High tide was giving them lump and bounce, this made for wipeouts and other problems but also made for fun mini lips to go up towards. My best wave of the session was a head high screamer where I felt like I was on my shortboard, dropping in, ducking down into a never froming barrell, coming up with a big cutback to the wash and then more racing. I was heading down towards the big boil with the submersed rock. Greggory just passed over the shoulder, I was heading way faster than I thought, came off the top and saw a guy on the shoulder. As I was computing which way to go around him I was instantly thrown underwater and actually heard my neck or back crack. I popped up, confused about what happend. The guy on the shoulder said that right after I saw him and starting to change direction, I hit the boil and went down, hard. My neck still hurts.

After that Greggory had two nice sets in a row, and I gathered in a lot of sets too. We were trading more waves than possible and we weren't complaing. We surfed down to the stairs at A-bay and then timed our paddle into shore and our run up the stairs before the next wave came in. Craziness.

The tide was supposed to drop which meant afternoon sessions would be better than this. At 5:00 I drove up to a point on the Gaviota Coast to go out and it was waist high or so. Weather or not the swell was gone or this place just wasn't getting it, I don't know, but a lot of shortboarders were still surfing in as close to the rocks as they could. I took a few photos and left, glad I went out in the am.