Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Comments:

Parked in the lot near an old Chumash burial ground and walked down the path with board and suit. Did the exact same thing yesterday but didn't got out. Just like yesterday you could see why a high tide is often called a flood tide. The water had come up the steepest part of the beach and even breached the barrier into the creek. The water was a murky color and full of everything it could scrounge from the beaches and the creek. The waves were breaking very close in. No one was out, but I needed to get wet so I paddled out into the mire.

Perfect little pipes were coming down the coast, and breaking just yards from the sand. They were about a foot high, and generated not far away judging by their very short period. The angle was very high, just peeling down the beach and looking perfect. If they were breaking further out it actually would be a nice session, but seeing as how they were breaking right on the beach it made for tough going.

Two surfers joined me shortly, and although we all sat within a fifty yard window, the waves were so peaky and isolated we never interacted on a single wave. The lineup was just yards offshore but in chest high water. You'd catch some wave that looked like it was too late, but it would hold back. A tough drop in with all the water moving up the face from the last wave sucking back out, and once in just one turn until and it turned inside out in a foot of water.

At home I washed my wetsuit out in the dark and noticed green lights flashing in my wetsuit as I moved it around. Bioluminescence, or the Red Tide, was out there, which may explain the nastniess of the water. Or the nastiness could be from surfing near a creek mouth during high tide near the full moon.