Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Kyle and I headed out early to Sands and met up later with IanI. Already 6 guys in the water before 6:30, we surfed at the very right edge of Stu's. Fun waves at first, some sizeable sets that often closed out too soon but offered lips flung out for cover up attempts. Very fun session, this is how I wish our average conditions were, chest to head high with some bigger sets, clean and pitching out and peaky.

Best part of the session was the cast of characters out there. The kid in the blue/gray camo suit that I keep seeing out at Rincon was out there. It was strange seeing someone nearly 30 miles north of where you usually see him. I thought he was a Carp kid that owned Rincon but hey he's flexible. For some reason I keep wanting to call him Paddington Bear. He rips, as does his friends, although the kid in the gold Rip Curl Bomb dropped in on Kyle and I once a piece. The other all star was the blonde kid who rips Sands in the Red Trimmed Rip Curl. This kid either works at or is in tight with Surf Country but he along with Bobby Morris are my favorite Goleta shredsters. It was too crowded to witness his skills today as compared to Monday. Great session.

A rare Monday morning dawn patrol. Sands with IanI and just a couple of others out there. This was the tail end of the Thanksgiving weekend swell that brought us waves that had a bit too much wind and chop on them to call it a great swell. Today the wind and chop was gone though, we had clean conditions although smaller, much preferred in my opinion.

IanI brought two boards like a pro, his new RocketFish and his new shortboard. He started with the shortboad which worked well until things started to slow down a lot with the incoming tide, then he switched to RocketFish and caught a lot of waves. I surfed the 6'3" and it worked well considering it had been collecting dust for over a week. Sets were fast and fun, a lot of closeouts though but that also meant chances for cover ups. Caught a lot of fun waves and had a great session. So did IanI. Kid with the Red Trimmed Rip Curl was out there just killing it. Saw an amazing aerial type thing that I can't explain, he was just getting loose on that thing. I was actually trying to give him waves to see what he would come up with. However he actually told me to go on one he clearly had priority on, I went and it was my best wave of the session. That kid is a good addition to any lineup.

Steve and I met Unkle along the PCH. He was already grumpy because his favorite parking spot was taken. The parking police usually came by around 6:45 to give the pre-7:00 parking people some hassle and tickets. Those guys are not fun. So with Unkle's secret pre-7:00 spot taken we had to do some improvising. This is when Unkle realized he forgot his wetsuit. He was about to drive home when his Jeep wouldn't start. Lot's of messing around, jump starting, push starting and etc, before he told us to go surf while he worked on it.

I had the fish, Steve had the longboard. We made it up to our peak and there was size. Head high waves and a little bigger on the sets. Very dis-organized, a lot of wind in the channel from the night before. Tide was high but wasn't that much of a factor. Winds were offshore and just pelting you with spray on the backside, but the waves were full of chop and dis-organization. The fish was the right tool for this point break on high tide, it sectioned out lot in places but then would also hold off in other places. A few guys came out, got pounded on the paddle out and then sat way outside. I had half a dozen guys out twice as far as I, catching almost nothing. Steve was getting worked on his LB so he went inside to find some smaller ones and then went in to rest. When he came back out he mis-timed it and took a lot more on the head. By that time I had got a lot of waves and it was time for breaky at Art's.

Today was 45 minutes earlier for scheduling reasons, so we were there at 5:45am. It was dark. We suited up anyway and paddled straight out. The tide was high. Caught a few slow waves and we missed our faster peak so we paddled a little and walked a little and got there. Bigger waves than yesterday, but bringing some of the dis-organization along with it. We were on longboards which were the right tool, but it was almost getting good enough to Fish.

A few real fun waves, things were starting to speed up out there. Lulls were long but the sets had some waves with enough power to walk towards the nose, and make a few cutbacks.

Speant the night up in SLO County and had a 6:30 surfing date with Unkle and Steve, which meant waking up at 4am, getting drive thru coffee, and heading south thru 3 counties full of fog. Got there on time and after 2 hours of driving, and a 5 year ritual of surfing together on Thanksgiving, we scrambled down some rocks and headed to our spot. Waves were small. Real small. We almost had nothing to ride, but we did ride waves.

The sun rose, and then went into clouds. Then the fog offshore crept in on all sides of us to the East and West was fog but we had clear conditions. Soon fog caught us too, as we caught a few more waves and headed in. One of the smaller Thanksgiving sessions in memory.

Kyle and Sands at lunch. Buoys looked there best in a week. Some waves, but long lulls. Sets were fun, only 1-2 waves and 15 minute lulls. Best waves were waist high and we only saw 3 of those. Usually milking knee to thigh high waves. Lefts and rights, super clean, and some super hollow. I predicted a nice barrell for one of us but it never happened.

Had our own peak west of Stu's. No one came out. Dolphins were way outside, and that stupid helicopter that has been circling Bird Island for the last 6 weeks was there.

Heading back from Hag's kicking new townhouse Dos Vientos, Bear and I stopped in the old stomping grounds for a Surf/Run. Hot and windy, and kinda miserable to deal with. Wind would hold the waves up too much, making drop ins tough as with board control at times. Some little cover ups could be found but your eyes were stinging with spray such that you couldn't see if you were covered up or not. Wind so strong that 4" capilary waves started crossing up the surface coming out of the East.

Packed. Solid mix of short and longboarders. Never seen so many LB's this far up the point. For good reason, it was breaking nicely all the way up to Old Emma Wood. Right after right ripping down the coast. It was like a beachbreak it was so spread out. Dolphins came close, scared the kid surfing next to me, he freaked out and cried for his dad. Same type of dolphins at Rincon yesterday, had a lot of "slashes" on their sides like Risso's dolphins but probably not.

The 101 North was closed in Montecito because of an overturned fuel tanker. For 14 hours. Traffic was backed up far into Carpinteria. For those that think people from the South clog up Rincon on epic swells, this would have been the perfect day to shut the door at the County Line. However, there was only a tiny bit of NW mixing with a tiny bit of SW today.

The NW and SW sets never matched up. A nice SW set would come in from the left and then a few minutes later a NW set would come in from the right. I surfed the furthest up the indicator and surfed by myself mostly while dozens surfed to my left. Water clean and warm still, could see the bottom, which you were standing on because it was so small. Every now and then some fun thigh high+ waves would come, try for a cover up, but nothing much. So much for the extreme West swell that was supposed to be aimed at us a few weeks ago. Dolphins again, and close. West to East.

Surfers are flakes. For instance, let's say it gets dark early now and you can't surf after work and you make lunch plans with friends a few days ahead of time. Then the day comes, its sunny and you need to get wet. You flake. They don't understand. That is me. Sorry dudes.

Kyle and I hit up Sands. Conditions were clean but so small. The period on the buoys was at an amazing 20 seconds. So a set would come in every now and then, and be thigh high, but in between you were left with glass. Water was very clear, maybe the clearest I've seen it at Sands. I actually got to know the bottom fairly well out there.

If Monday was smaller then Sunday, Tuesday was likewise smaller than Monday. Yet still rideable. Rode the shorty, Kyle rode his Single Fin. Although the sets were big enough for the shortboard, it was the boarderline of wanting the Fish. Surfed in front of the snowy plovers by ourselves without reckless people to run into us. Some fun waves, nothing remarkable. Rode the single fin, a very flat and fast board. Since it was leashless and rocks were showing, I did not want to ding his board so missed out on oportunities.

Pre-lunch at Sands with Kyle. To our surprise the swell was not entirely gone and there was still some energy out there. It wasn't too crowded at first so we hit up Stu peak. We hung to the left for awhile and got some fun ones. An early wave of mine was my best. I took off behind the peak on a right and as soon as I dropped in the lip came over my head and got a quick cover up before I got hit by the lip as I exited into the flats. Kept going on the wave, got a little kick off the lip. Kyle witnesssed the cover up so I know it wasn't just in my imagination.

Kyle got some kickin waves too, saw him tuck into a closeout foamball and disapear. Soon we lost our peak as it got more crowded. I got irate at the crowd because there were a lot of people who should not have been out there, or at least not on the equipment they choose. A pod of inexperienced guys on longboards were a menace to the lineup, continually putting people in danger by their careless board control and abusing the power of their of their boards flotation. Finally had to paddle to the West to get to a good peak out of danger.

After a nearly 3 hour early session with IanI at Rincon this am, I was beat. However Little Bear rallied me to hit up Deveraux on our longboards in the pm. To tell the truth after frolicking in head high waves on my highest performance board at the Queen of the Coast, I wasn't too amped for session #2. However, once again surfing shows it's true colors because now I can't decide which session was more fulfilling. Although the waves here were only knee to thigh high it was a glorious moment to be out in the warm clear water with the Bear. I hadn't surfed with her since Carpinteria in September so it was a good time to share some waves and stoke out in fading light of another great weekend.

The sunset blew me away, a full 360 degrees of color to soak up. Pink, red, orange, purple, it went thru everything with different clouds highlighted as the sun continued it's plunge further from us. Had some great longboard waves, and blew a fair share of them too trying to take turns that aren't meant to be done on a longboard. Nearly no foot-work, just cutbacks moves to keep in the curl and not lose my board into the low tide rocks. Little Bear was surfing like a maniac, she caught a ton of waves and was busting out some serious style. Great way to end a weekend.

Some campus point fotos from around the same time are here.

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Blue Camo kid was out there again, getting some of the best and longest rides out there. IanI had a few friends out there and they headed towards the Rivermouth so I surfed there for some time. Down there it was smaller and doing funny things with the high tide, but was less crowded. I caught a few waves down here to build up the wave count and confidence and then walked back up and paddled out past the indicator. Surfed here for a long time with IanI and at one point he disapeared. When he came back he had the hugest smile on his face from his ride and yelled to me from 20 yards away through the lineup "that is why we surf!"

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Had a couple of long rides down towards the Rivermouth but never made it around the corner. Some good guys out there, including the kid with the blue camo wetsuit who will walk back to the indicator after getting a long one into the Rivermouth. That kid trys come as close as possible to hitting people's feet when they are paddling over the shoulder.

A Dubock foto from this day:

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Happy Veteran's Day.

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It sucked out there. The SSE wind was strong and with a big enough fetch to bring in un-ignorable cross-chop in the 6-12" range. This piled on top of the smaller than yesterday NW swell and there wasn't much for us to do with the waves. The same guy I shared the peak with yesterday was out, obviously just as bummed, but he was still ripping. It was pretty miserable, not worth the suffering for such poor waves. The rain and wind was bad on the bike ride back, but in the afternoon the sprinkles stopped. Then during election evening we had strong winds from the SE until 2am the skies opened and we got our first real winter storm. Awesome.

UPDATE: A reader surfed a few hours before me and sent in this story on wave and animal conditions:

"I just wanted to notify (if you are interested) that Tuesday morning I got bit (or pinched) by some sea-animal while paddling out (in fairly shallow water) at Sands... Big blue crab? Stingray? Little shark? Who knows... The cut wasn't very big, just deep, and it caused my ankle to bleed for a while and then get very swollen later that day (and still is now). Anyway, moral of the story: be careful when you step around shallow water at sands."

Further prodding:

"I'm positive it wasn't a rock. I actually felt an animal hitting me and biting (or pinching) my ankle. I hit rocks all the time and although it can be a little annoying it never really hurts. I was surfing the main (Stu) peak (right in front of the small beach area) around 10 am and it was horrible, especially compared to the day before which had some chest and even shoulder high sets around the same time. But yeah, Tuesday was super-choppy, small and inconsistent, possibly even worse than what you said you surfed at noon."

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My peak sharing friend was very good, getting in huge hits on the lip and floaters only my mind can conjure. By contrast I'd scream down the line on the Fish and try to pull the biggest cutback the board would allow me, regroup with a few pumps and then end up off the lip in a blaze of glory.

(Update: I also forgot to post about the awesome dolphin experience I had. A pod was swimming by and 3-4 were heading straight for me, coming up every 10 feet or so and on targe to come up right where I was. I faced them and started swirling my hands in the water to get their attention. Two of them stopped 3-4 feet from me and floated at the surface, with their backs and blowholes above water but their eyes and nose below water. They checked me out for 5-10 seconds and then swam under me and came up on the other side. It was great.)

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A haved headed guy got a sweet cover-up. There were not many cover ups to be had today, but he dropped in, and most certainly willed the wave to pitch out over his head. He disapeared as the thing swallowed him and I hooted. I made sure to give him props on my paddle out, it's always good to have 2nd hand confirmation that you really did get pitted as deep as you thought. Towards the end it got less and less crowded and more and more consistent. I was so tired, I was passing up lots of waves waiting for a set wave that that looked workable.

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Made friends with a sea lion but wasn't too talkative with other surfers.

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The guy with the baseball cap was out there again, this time trunkin it. This guy is a rad, a friendly attitude in the lineup amongst a sea of stink eye. This guy and his tribe of gals and girls had setup camp on the beach and were making a day of it, complete with brewski's. Good living on a November afternoon.

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