"Stay happy and you'll be perfectly fine" - Jack Norris

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.
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 is almost always windy at Jalama so the sailboarders love it.
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!
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!