Postcard from Cali (& Sydney surf thoughts)

Hello Friends,

Seems likely that most Sydney surfers will, like most southern California surfers, be giving it a miss today. The fates are ganging up against northern beaches waterpersons in particular, what with the onshores, rain and the dead whale at Newport potentially luring lots of sharks inshore.  The Goat’s call from yesterday is lining up – sadly – with the indicators this morning.  Swell is a couple metres out of the SSE but it hardly matters given the other conditions.

On this side of the ditch the weather is quite warm, the skies are blue and unlike the eastern part of the USA, there’s no prospect of a twister suddenly appearing. Sadly, the cold pacific (this morning’s water temp at Santa Barbara pier is up a nudge to 14C) is looking pretty feeble. Even exposed places such as California Street in Ventura (about 45 min south of Santa Barbara) are barely registering anything remotely surfable. That said, I might go scout around anyway…

Here’s a shot of the inside at C-Street. This is roughly 30 percent of the entire break by the way.

Have yourself a good one!

Excavation And Exploration, In Byron Bay Today.

Excavation And Exploration, In Byron Bay Today. Well we certainly had swell, and wind and just a couple of million litres of rain, in Byron Bay today. But the big news is the sand, it’s on the march again, moving from the summer banks into the winter build, which is a very different state of things indeed. The banks were pretty tasty today, although can’t say I’m that confident that they will stay that way. The sand is moving so quick right I suspect the waves we’re experiencing at the moment is more of transitional kind of thing. as the current does some serious excavation it’s time for some exploration. Only Huey really knows what we’ll be left with, when it all settles down again. I suspect we may see some lively moments closer to,,,,, but, no, I will say no more on the matter. You’ll just have to go look for yourself, In Byron Bay Today.

The Goat’s Surf Forecast

Surf forecast issued Thursday 28 April 2011 for Sydney: 

Grandson Josh: Pa why are you cranky today? 

Pa: I’m not cranky mate.  We’re having fun.

Josh: Daddy said this morning you’d be cranky today (with the wind, the surf, the rain showers etc).

>>>But I wasn’t cranky because I was expecting it ….

- so neither should you – cause there’s more lousy weather and lousy surf to come!>>>

The Bureau has a warning for tomorrow through to Monday:

“Dangerous surf conditions, hazardous for coastal activities such as swimming, surfing and rock fishing, are expected.”

Having seen from Newport to  Palmie today, I can only add it’s not currently huge but the wind is swinging around onshore or South/South East, the waves are messy, what’s on offer isn’t worth it -  and there’s an additional warning of possible increased local shark activity from the Newport to Palm Beach area, due to the whale carcass that’s been washed up on the rocks at North Newport and the pieces of blubber flaoting in the ocean! …That’s apart from the ordinary water quality from runoff anyway after all the rain we’ve had… Might be time to visit a museum or something – instead of surfing…

Looks to me like conditions might should start to improve around Tuesday – when I’m back at work! … But I’m not cranky.

Surf outlook:

Friday: in the 2-3 metre range East South East. with rubbish wind conditions

Saturday: 2-3 metres East South East. with rubbish wind conditions – Go Avalon Beach IRBs in the first competiton this season at North Narrabeen – won’t be pleasant but have fun!  No prob for surfers – won’t be anyone out

Sunday: 2-3, 3-4 metres East. with rubbish wind conditions

Monday: about 4 metres or more . with rubbish wind conditions. maybe ok in the morning for a bit

Tuesday: around 2 metres South East. with offshore wind!

Wednesday: 2-3 metres South East.

Thursday: about 2 metres East South East.

Weather from the Bureau:

Oh good some more rain…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Historical note: 28 April 1770 Cook sails into Botany Bay) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday 29 April

UV Alert from 10:00 am to 1:40 pm, UV Index predicted to reach 4 [Moderate]

Horrible.

Its not happening on the surf front.  Onshore slop is a good description on what going on.  Not much more to say really.  Surf Photos of You.

Shire Rpt

Yeah, there are waves. But there’s also heaps of unfavourable wind. Were there a sheltered corner down here, I’m still not sure you’d want to go surfing today

Postcard from Cali + Sydney surf thoughts

Hello Friends,

Tide’s low a little after 1100 in Sydney and the wind’s supposed to be out of the SE by then. It was showing as NE at North Head when I started tapping this out at a little after 0700 – which is kinda weird since the radar’s showing a steady line of rain events streaming in from the SE. Swell was showing as a couple metres from the SE with an average period of 8 seconds. My guess is you’ll want to be pretty damn keen given all that. The Bureau’s got surf warnings posted for the next few days, but according to the charts, it looks like being SE and more SE through Saturday. But after that… well, if the forecast models turn out to have anything to do with reality, you should be able to make out a green glow off to the NE around Monday. That will be coming from me as I radiate envy at Sydneysiders’ offshore and clean surf conditions – and warm water. It looks like a classic east coast low will form up and fire the good stuff straight at ya.

Meanwhile, over here in so-cal, we’re still waiting for something like waves in the Santa Barbara region. About the only thing that’s happened since I got here is that the water has plunged back down to around 12 degrees thanks to a bout of NW wind.  That would be annoying but bearable if only we had some waves. Instead, we’re looking at dribbly junk that wouldn’t be out of place on a lake. Grumble, grumble.

Here’s a snap from the webcam located at Campus Point to give you an idea of how ordinary it is in Santa Barbara this afternoon.

Have a good one!

Time to look ahead

A bit bigger today but no less crap.  Still onshore, bumpy etc but a little more size always helps with head high sets.  I’m a lot more excited about the forecasted weather maps though.  Check out the nugget low thats supposed to form into Sunday below.  That my Gen-y internet forecasting friends is a good looking low pressure system (yes stop looking at bars and graphs and fancy colour charts and go old school forecasting). Fingers crossed if it turns out the way they say the winds are looking good to match the swell into Monday.  Dust off the bigger board…..

Surfboards Direct

Back In The Office, In Byron Bay Today

So good to be outdoors and back in what we consider being our office, in Byron Bay today. Although great to be out and shooting again, Huey was in no mood to make it easy for us or anyone else for that matter, in the bay today. There was plenty of rain, most of which was coming in sideways from the southeast at thirty to forty knots. The trees were bowing down to the gusts, the tops of the swell simply blew away at times, and all the while the crew kept smiling happily to themselves. And who could blame them, because despite all the rain, cold and Huey’s big old blow, there were still some pretty nice waves on offer for those in the know, In Byron Bay Today.

Dee Why Afternoon Upate: No improvements noted

Same as it was earlier today at Dee Why. Onshore, small and sloppy. Looks like it hasn’t Jon T. and a few other desperates out of the water though.

Postcard from Cali (+ reflections on Sydney)

Hello Friends,

Your humble servant has returned to the world of powerpoints and internet connections after a sojourn in the remote desert of SE California. And what do I see? 2 metres of SE swell showing on the MHL buoy off Sydney, that’s what. Period is ranging from a windswelly 8 seconds to a punchy 12 sec. A quick check of the latest coastal observations reveals that the wind is pushing along at 15-20 kts from the SSE at most of Sydney’s coastal weather stations. And from the look of the marine forecast, it’s going to keep that nonsense up all day. Indeed, the situation seems to be SE right through to the weekend. Even so, my teeth are gnashing because there should be building swell sufficient I would guess to get into some of the protected corners. From the look of the models, there should be solid se swell into Monday when the wind just might get more around to the SW… ya lucky pups!

Meanwhile here in California it’s early spring, so the water’s still around the 14 mark in Santa Barbara county and the prevailing NW wind is pushing up a tiny gutless and essentially largely unsurfable little windswell. Pretty typical conditions for this time of year. It’s still possible to get the kind of long period west to NW swell that lights up the points, but the odds are steadily decreasing.

Scroll down below the marine forecast for a few snaps…