Santa Barbara Area Surf Reports

Downside: Smaller than yesterday. Upside: At 9:30am I'm surfing Rincon with no one out all the way from the top of the indicator down past the Rivermouth. A dozen surfers in the Cove, but no one North of there. Shark scare? Sewage Spill? Unknown, but I'm surfing thigh to waist high waves by myself for over a half hour before 3-4 other surfers come out. Waves at the Indicator were funny, the tide was wrong and the angle was wrong, so a nice peak would pop up, pitch out for a super hollow section than disapear. Seeing as how I had the place to myself I sat further inside just above the Rivermouth and caught the less frequent wide swingers that had better shape and were longer rides. Result: many fun take-offs behind that peak, driving down to beat the first section, a hit off the lip and my best section floater attempt ever.

A longboarder came out, followed by a grom on a 5' board. We had the spread, an old longboarder, a grom on a chip, and me in the middle on the Fish. We got along well. Grom's dad came out and grom caught a sweet wave from the indicator that he drove all the way into where I was sitting. I'm hooting, dad's hooting, the Rincon watches silently as another grom's formative years grow.

A month straight of being able to find waves at least Chest high and today and our conditons have been good for the season yet sometimes windy. Today the streak gets ruined, with small waves at Rincon. The Indicator in the Rivermouth had about two dozen surfers trying to make the most of out of the smaller conditions. Longboards were back at the indicator and the guy with the white hat was back paddeling people and dropping in people. Including a really, really bad burn job of me. I'm sure he's a nice guy, probably has a family, works hard at his job, spends time with kids. Yet totally sees me, stuffs me, and keeps on going.

Besides that guy we had some really shredding it groms out there, kids 1/3 my age, 1/2 my weight, and 10/1 my ability showing us why for generations parents have groomed their groms at the Queen.

Great Friday lunchtime session at Deveraux, with guest surfers including Kyle, Little Bear, Wild Bill, and JC. Bear, Kyle and I started out at the Block House, I on Kyle's Becker longboard. Very long lulls out here but fun sets, doing that thing that Deveraux does: break for a long time. Lots of time to drop in, go down the line, cutback to left, eat a sandwich, then cutback to the right down the line. Other waves were so fast it was like surfing a beachbreak on the wrong tide. Off of the Yucca Tree a nice left was breaking, much faster and exciting yet not as dependable.

Soon Wild Bill and JC showed up and we had our own 5 person possee. I switched to Kyle's 7 foot something single fin, which is a board style that might find a way in my quiver someday. Flat and quick, with a crazy release off the tail, it made for fun turns. Everybody seemed to be catching a lot of waves, chatting it up, and generally having a lazy Friday lunch out in the water. Great times.

Dawn Patrol at Campus Point with Greggory, both on our Fish. My first Campus Point session since last Tuesday, and in the meantime Michelle Housego drowned here on Sunday. We wanted to enjoy ourselves and respect this newly formed scared place. I checked the buoys at 6am and the swell was by no means big but it was significant. Problem was, winds in the channel had been steady at 20-25knts all night, and even the airport reported 17knts at 3am. This swell would be severly beaten down and dis-organized and perhaps not even worth chasing. We went anyway, what else were we going to do, sleep?

Sure enough, the visual check showed smaller conditions than the raw buoy data might suggest, but it was connecting much better than expected. Us along with 3 others were first in the water, and started to surf the 2nd and 3rd peaks down. Here it was significantly smaller than up top, but the shape was better, rides were longer and crowds were nil. Greggory can still count on one hand the number of sessions he's surfed a board shorter than 9 feet yet he brought along his A game. Perhaps the quickest Long to Short board transition I've ever witnessed. He had one wave, where he was heading down the line, driving for some speed and then as it closed out he hit the foam and got a mini little 6" floater. Impressive for a guy who was a circus act a week and a half ago.

Got some fun waist high waves with a green glass sheen to them on the inside. Outside had much chop and churn on it yet up to shoulder high at best. Did two laps to the top and back, then G suggested we head in via Poles, then into Anacapa Bay and up the stairs. We caught a few downstream and then sat outside of the shower house. A few nice waves came in that we missed or were out of priority for. I was watching the Rocks where Michelle got tangled up in, respectfully keeping my distance yet trying to understand what went wrong. I then caught perhaps the best wave of my life at Poles. It certainly was my longest and best wave there on a non-longboard. I screamed down the line, pumping for speed and never once took a turn to bleed speed, it was just that fast. I drove past those haunting rocks and came towards two surfers on the inside who were hoping I'd fall or not make the next section. The green curtain started to rise, I ducked down and petted the wall, it never came over me but I had a half-pipe view of the world for awhile. I came out of that section and was back to driving for speed. This went on and on and it ended with a little floater. I was down not quite to the stairs, but to the place the cliff caved in and you can't see the fence, perhaps a hundred feet from the stairs. However cheesy or cliche it may be, that glassy and green thrill ride will forever stick in my mind as for Michelle Housego.

Very fun for 20 minutes. Waist to Chest High, super hollow and fast. Many fun rides right off the bat. Then 20 minutes into a boat passed offshore, and ruined the waves for the rest of the session. At least that was the joke. But yes the NWS was correct, afternoon winds were going to pick up, and the buoys that were reporting high winds offshore and 11 second periods were right, and it all showed up right now. It went from great to worst ever in less than a10 minutes. The water cleared, as did we.

An uncrowded session at Stu Peak at Sands. Uncrowded because this should be the smallest day of surf for the week so most were resting. The sets were waist high, glassy, and fun but they were inconsistent. Lefts were better than rights, but I pulled the best floater in the last two weeks on one of the waist high rights.

After 45 minutes out there we were getting ready to catch a last wave in. A couple more guys were sitting near us. I caught a fun thigh high right and as I was heading towards the cliffs I saw what at first looked like a smooth rock with holes in it down the line. As I pulled out, it disapeared back into the water, leaving a giant boil behind it. I thought I had imagined a Mantee or some sort of ugly dolphin. I sat there, about 15 feet from the boil, in thigh high water waiting for this dolphin to pop back up again. I whistled to Kyle who was outside in the lineup, so he wouldn't miss it when this ugly dolphin came back. It never appeared so I paddled back out, and this time Kyle took a right. As he was going down the line, it popped up again, and it became clear what it was, a huge male Elephant Seal, staring him down. Kyle popped out and scrambled to the lineup. This thing then watched us for 10-15 minutes, he was inside of us and to the East, big giant nostrils, very deep eye sockets, and a giant snout. No doubt it was a male elephant seal and it weighed over a ton. It's head was much bigger than a 5 gallon paint drum and it's body from nose to tail was perhaps 10 feet long. It kept watching us, sometimes submersing itself for awhile, but always coming back up. I then caught a wave which put me in-line with it but 100 feet or so up the beach. It now started to watch me, so I took some whitewash in to chat with some onlookers on the beach. Soon the seal was nowhere to be found. This is the first time I've ever seen an Elephant Seal while surfing, and the first time I've seen an Elephant Seal in Santa Barbara County.

Session along the Montecito coast. Once again Shaun was out there, and a lot of others too, way too many people for this spot. It was working though, head high waves, sometimes bigger. The conditions weren't the best, a bit junky and sometimes sectioning out. Got even worse as the session went on, some luffs of wind visible on the outside forewarned of the impeding blown outness. It never did get completely blown out by the time I left, but it was close.

Sad part of this day is that a surfer drowned at Campus Point later that day.

I had written today off as surfable. It was supposed to be rainy and cruddy. However at 8:00 it was only light rain and not windy. I went for it. Did a no look Cove session on the Fish. Bingo. Less than a dozen people out, the water wasn't too filled with poo, and the lines were long and fun. Surfed from the glass house down past the hut on at least 3 waves. Was actually surfing like I wasn't a kook, driving down the line, making a big cutty, coming up on the foam then heading back down the line, perhaps hitting a lip or two.

Some of the best waves were the bigger sets that swung wide and caught everyone inside. I found by hanging out further down in the cover I could react to these and pick them up without contest. It was a conveyor belt. Afterwards the Seahawks beat the Redskins.

First time checking out Sands since the big swell of December 21st, and man how much Sand has been chiseled away from that beach. The high tide line has climbed up the beach so high there is only about 2000 square feet of soft sandy beach left under the cliffs. The snowy plover roping was all gone, although there were a lot of signs up still, and the snowy plovers themselves lost about 50% of their oceanfront real estate. Kyle and I walked down the mouth of the slough and picked off some drainers coming in over the bar. With all that sand moving around you'd think it got dumped somewhere to build shape, but at least at low tide we didn't see it.

Still managed to squeak in a lot of long waves, some jacking up impossibly in very shallow water, and others spilling over gently. Kyle took a bad digger on the bottom, and I was more than once dragged along the rocks on the bottom, even on small waves they were molesting me on water to no end. Two almost mini cover ups but not really.

Campus again at lunch, this time the crowds were there, and the conditions were not as clean, proving if you get an awesome great day, it's tough to reproduced it the next day. Greggory, IanI and I tried though. Greggory was day 3 on his fish and he had is biggest breakthrough yet, surfing with confidence, taking turns instead of diggers and getting a hefty number of waves under his belt at the 2nd peak. I stuck to outside peak, sometimes sitting way outside trying to backdoor the peak which often came down on my head in some sort of psudeo-cover up. Shifting more to the left yielded more rideable waves. Waves in the thigh to waist high range, and over a dozen people out spread throughout the point.

First session in three weeks that hasn't had any head high waves. Waves were more like thigh to waist high, but super clean and pitching out with some paper thin lips. Somehow scored Campus when it wasn't too crowded, the folks that were out there opting for the 2nd peak while Kyle and I mostly soloed the outer peak, which sometimes connected thru. It was a non-stop wave machine, with frequent 2-3 waves sets peeling in that were about waist high. Weather was warm and sunny, water is still warm, and a the waves would gently pitch out these super thin lips that we were trying to use for shade, without much success. Only time I got covered up was when a lip feelbly broke on my head.

Heading down the stairs from the upper lot there were only a few heads bobbing in the water at the Indicator. The paddle out the back looked do-able so I went for it. On that paddle out there were very thick lipped closeouts churning down the coast. White, foamy lips thicker than my legs were churning the water into a frothy mess. I made it out, but not without raising my adrenaline levels. At the indicator I was suprised that there wasn't a huge crowd around the corner, perhaps a dozen surfers from here to the start of the cove. Sets would come in pretty hefty and shifty. The best sets lined up nicely to the left, and connected well past the Rivermouth. Twice I ended up surfing almost to the glass house, where the lineup for the cove surfers started.

Deveraux with Greggory and IanI, all on varying styles of Fish. It was G's first time on his new fish, which looks like a 3" thick longboard chopped shorter than 6 feet, given two big fins spread out to the rails, and a giant swallow tail. We paddled out half way between the Yucca tree and the Jailhouse and surfed awhile just west of the Yucca tree. It was shifty, with two swells coming in and not quite lining up. The sea had a bit of early morning cheese on it too, and Deveraux has been having a hard time holding some of these straight westers. I paddled to the point and caught a few waves. It was a whole different world out there: windy, choppy and some pretty hairball drops with little in the way of turning.

Checked Deveraux, which has had some serious sand re-arrangement because it is just not it's usual self lately. Then checked some of the IV reefs and beachbreaks to find all of the sand gone from the beaches and a lot of closeout barrells. Kyle and I then did a first for me: Tackle Campus Point from the Western approach. Parked at the end of IV and hiked thru the "new" Manzanita dorms and down to Depressions and walked on rocks and that clay cliff material to the backside of Campus. I don't think this route was faster but it was worth trying once. We then backdoored the paddle out w/o incident and were surfing with half a dozen guys at the top of the point, with another few dozen spread throughout the break.

Random session along the Gaviota Coast, first time surfing here this season. A small crowd and breaking in two spots, out at the tip and then another good takeoff spot inside the cove. Had a lot of good rides, crazy train fast and sometimes connecting down into the cove. A series of two waves got me all the way to very bottom of the cove for the very first time ever.