Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Comments:

No one out and looking bad. Same as my surf check yesteray. Only today I needed it more. I suited up and went out. Waves were breaking very close to shore in waist high water. Leashless, on the fish and catching tons of small waves that went mostly nowhere. Every now and then a set would come in that offered waves in the calf high range, but those were rare.

After about a half hour three kids came to join me. They watched for awhile, sure they were not going to join, but after one deceiving set came in and I caught a long wave, for the conditions, they were out with me, respectfully spreading out like good citizens.

Protocol was for the old 'stand in the water and hold your board' or the old 'lay on your board'. For some reason, and I don't know why, whenever waves are this small you just don't sit on your board in the water. It just seems wrong to sit up when the waves are that small. So you stand in the lineup, as if to tell people, "I'm just out here to get wet, no this is not surfable". All four of us were doing this.

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After this mornings "session" along the Mesa I thought things could only pickup as the day progressed. Greggory and I planned a dusk assault at Leadbetter on the longboards. We were going out no matter how bad it looked. It looked bad. No waves in sight, no one out and overcast. Leashless was good for the low tide as it created a forest of kelp amongst other problems. It was small. You know it's a sad, sad day when you paddle for waves that are head high when you are lying down. I have no shame surfing small waves, but his was perhaps the smallest, most gutless session of the summer.

Of course since we were out there, alone, in total garbage waves many decided to join us. Within the hour we had a half a dozen people sitting on us. Did we make it look that good? What are you people doing. I discovered an insane inside section that was pealing 8" waves for yards. Yards. The problem with this was that I was in direct competition with the skimboarders. They were like, "Hey you guys are supposed to stick to the water that is over one foot deep and we take the shallows." Not really, but I would surf until my 7" fin had a nice sanding. So to speak.

Soon the micro inside grew boring so Greggory and I planned a brave assualt. We would paddle outside, past all of those people sitting in the kelp strewn battefield and claim our spot at that little peak that breaks outside the point. This worked for me the other day. It rarely connects to wrap around into the cove but provides bigger waves and more consistency. We ruled this peak that had 1' bombs every 5 minutes until we attracted a crowd again. We put the work in to discover these hidden secret breaks and others captilize on our groundwork. Saddening, really.

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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.

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On the way down to Lynda's 50th Birthday Party in Ventura K-dog and I stopped for some beach and surfing. Ended up just north of Emma Wood along the beachbreaks. The tide was getting high which left just a little bit of sand on the beach. The waves were awesome, perhaps my best session this summer. Super fast pipes were barrelling up the beach from the south swell, creating challenging lefts that were strictly for racing down. The water was freezing cold. I wore my spring suit because my session earlier that day at Leadbetter in the fullsuit was too warm. Mistake. Freezing. Just a few people out at the peak I challenged, and wave selection was key. 40% of the waves were top to bottom close-out mackers, while the rest offered rideability. A few rights were even to be had, in fact my longest ride was a right that offered up a shoulder to tour into. Sometimes the rights were sneakers though that just closed out on you in a hurry. The lefts were the main attraction though. You could see them for miles marching up the beach, a hint of offshore grooming them, a bit warbly from the high tide, but pitching out like some kind of tropical reef-pass. I had countless railgrabbing quick drops, tucked into position, trying to get into the teardropped shaped hollows, sometimes beating a section or two and then skating out the back like I just had a perfect 10 at pipeline. Although I'm sure from anyone's viewpoint I never got barrelled, I had Barrell View Potential.

There was a guy up on the rocks watching our peak for about 20 minutes. When I got out K-dog told me she thought it was Marcus Allen. I didn't know he surfed.

Comments:

It didn't look good at Leadbetter but I wasn't letting that stop me. Took the longboard out, it had been awhile, and went leashless. A couple of hippie kids waking up on the beach, looked like they were going to ask me for change, but figured they'd wait till they got to Cafe Roma.

Three people out, in their designated lineup spots, so I was the rover. Caught waves inside at first, super teeny tiny ones that still went on forever. Then paddled way outside and around the point and caught some bigger ones that didn't make the wrap. Eventually did get one of these outsiders to wrap the point. Repeated this routine for an hour or so, always scrambling for something, trying to get a workout. This worked against me as I caught a small wave all the way inside and saw the set of the day outside. A patient guy got the first one and a patient woman got the second one. Paddling out with the guy he said, "now THAT's the wave I saw an hour ago when I checked it."

After that a handfull of surfers were gearing up so I got a waves swinging wide towards the harbor and took it to sand.

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No surfing since Thursday so I once again head out to the beachbreak to hang out with groms. Almost an identical setup to Thursday, except no old longboarders running over their kids today. Surf shop guy is out, as are the usual suspect rippers. Didn't look like much while suiting up on the beach so I went leashless like on Thursday. However I lost my board so much and "held back" on some potential cover ups that I ran in for the leash about half way thru.

Paddled straight out and went insane on one wave after another. Lots of closeouts which today meant lots of swimming because I was too stupid to control myself and had to try to do something at the end of the wave. So glassy and clean, when a bigger closeout set would come in I'd stall just so I could duck dive thru the clean tube, grabbing the front of my board with one hand and seeing how gracefully and slowly I could punch thru. Not a drop of water out of place on these waist high waves. It was foggy and cruddy looking when I left work, and I headed towards the beach and it actually cleared up, which was weird. Driving downtown afterwards and got foggy again. Island of Sun.

Waves kept getting better and better, a consistent flow of thigh to waist high waves to experiement on. The crowd drifted East and I tried to stay in place which made me the only guy on the most popular peak by the time the sun was setting. No dolphins, one seal, which did not attack me.

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Needed a quick after work session so I headed to a beachbreak thinking it was going to be flat and no one out and I would end up putting the trunks on and swimming around instead. Not so, there was a dozen kids out and knee high waves breaking in knee high water. I was saved, suited up as quick and giddy as if it was overhead and offshore, and paddled out. A lot of really young groms clumped together in a chatty pack at the East Peak that has been the best this summer, I headed straight out where a couple others were picking up waves from another peak. Hadn't been out in over a week and the going was tough for a couple of waves. One of the local surf shop guys was out there, chatted with him a bit, and did some great floundering in front of him. I'm sure next time I go in there and tell him what I'm working on in my surfing style and how it's tough he'll probably say, "yeah, because you suck!" Actually my surfing got better as the session wore on. I found a groove on a left that was mostly my own. A screaming take-off and bottom turn into the curl where it would either close out or offer a few turns. My biggest wave was a right that was waist high or so, a stacked up screamer that I planed down until a failed off the lip closeout dump leaving me floating upside down in shallow water. Super good vibe out there, as is usual on lazy summer days where Goleta families meet up with their surf rat kids who've been dominating the beach all day. A few longboarding fathers hanging out with thier sons who were surfing boards half the length of their fathers, the kids abuzz with energy while the men mostly quiet, staring to sea, waiting to catch an outside wave to run over their kids and their grom friends for a good hoot. good times.