World Juniors – Round One Heats

Made my way to NN for what is becoming a bit of a tradition for me at this time of year and a few others – g’day Ray and Zander - as the world’s best juniors took to the waves for the Billabong World Junior Championship 2008. And half their luck as they enjoyed what is looking like the best “swell” of the day on the Northern Beaches. That is until the high tide arrived at noon. But they did manage to squeeze in 9 heats during the morning session photos from which can be viewed at http://www.surfphotosofyou.com/portfolio47295.html

Enjoy! And as this is my post of 2009, Happy New Year!

Cheers, Doug

www.wozthatyou.com

Lennox Head

Spending the week up at Lennox. But the surf at present is crap wit ha howling SE’r blowing a sloppy white mess onto the beach. The point is worthless. Planning to go up to Broken head to see if it is any better this afternoon but with little hope of it being any better.

Lennox Head

Hopefully the wind will back off tomorrow and there will be some swell left to work with.

Postcard from California: off to Jalama

Hello Friends,

Looks from the reports that Sydney and Southern California are trying to out do each other for woefulness where surf’s concerned. I see by the buoy data from down south that you’ll be lucky to be seeing anything above waist high at south facing stretches. Throw in the wind forecast of SE turning NE later and you really don’t have a very satisfactory picture. Later in the week looks slightly more hopeful on the forecast models though. With luck you might see something in the way of NE windswell from late Tuesday.

The southern end of Jalama beach is named after the spiders native to the region.

It’s Friday afternoon here as I write this and the morning fog has cleared to sunny if cool afternoon. The days of course are very short, so although it’s 4pm, it feels like 7pm in Sydney. Given the abject flatness, I decided to take a drive up north of Santa Barbara to a remote little spot called Jalama.

Jalama (Huh-la’mah) is a spot of last resort for Santa Barbara surfers during the long, flat days of summer. With no channel islands (y’know, like the boards) to block it, the summer south swell can get in while everything from Ventura north to Pt Conception is flat. Because of its exposure to the dominant winter swell and wind direction, it’s often too big and stormy to surf this time of year. However, when the winter conditions are some of the worst in memory, it becomes an option.

It

The hour long drive from Santa Barbara takes you along the Gaviota coast. It’s the last undeveloped coastal stretch remaining in southern California. The developers’ ceaseless efforts have recently sentenced another chunk of it to multi-million dollar houses at a place called Naples (one of my favourite surf zones), but happily there are still several dozen kms that aren’t too obviously disturbed and therefore look much as they have for who knows how many years.

The road to Jalama runs off a rural highway and it passes through more largely undeveloped Californian countryside. We had nice weather for the drive and it was fun to re-acquaint myself with each of the twists and turns of a road I’ve been back and forth on probably around a hundred times.

The Jalama road basically follows a valley to the sea, and you don’t get to find out if your hour long drive from Santa Barbara was worth the effort until the very last moment when you come around a bend and the ocean comes into view again.

And extra cold water for your enhanced surfing enjoyment!

Sadly, by the time we arrived, the prevailing NW wind was up to around 15 kts and the little waist to shoulder high NW swell was pretty messy and uninviting. I’d have gone in if the water was Sydney warm, but the ocean this far north is probably 12-14 degrees. I’m just not desperate enough for a wave to get into cold slop. I got a couple pictures for you though.

Allegedly there is a small increase in swell due tomorrow, so here’s hoping…

Go well with your day!

Nuthin doin at Dee Why

1 foot dribble at Curly today

At 9am there’s 1 foot of dribble, onshore winds, blueys and poor prospect of decent waves today.  Just got back from Bells/ Torquay in Vicco where the swell for the past few days was 3-6 foot, clean and 10 times better than anything I’ve seen here for months.  Lets hope we get something soon.  Should be a new north swell by Monday arvo- it may develop if the low picks up once it hits the coast off QLD. Enjoy.

Narrabeen Rpt

Tiny, choppy & weak

Surf is small (despite) and choppy (because of) the southerly that was a blowin’ yesterday.  Swell is from the South, but it didn’t increase at all …(as expected). Currently cloudy and coolish at 18.   Wind is currently light ESE and is expected to turn to the NE later when the the sky should become sunnier.

While the tide is running in there will be some little (choppy) waves at south friendly spots, but you will need a mal to enjoy them.

Water temp is a pleasant 23 – so it’s also a good day to practice your swimming for next Sunday’s annual Avalon beach surf swim.  Register online at www.oceanswims.com  Clear clean water free parikng for the swim, no need for shuttle buses to take you from one beach to the next – all your gear is at the one place.  It’s the place for you to give your money to Avalon Beach SLSC!