by Paul McHugh
(Editor’s note: Paul McHugh was on the first U.S. Kayak Surfing Team that went to Ireland in 1988 and won top scores in the international kayak competition. He has published outdoor and adventure stories for many years, and currently writes fiction as well. His recent murder mystery “Deadlines” won regional and national awards.)
When you come right down to it, it’s all about riding on the energy. Either energy that you find, or energy that you generate. Or, ideally, both in combination. That’s a preferred manifestation, when surfers head to the coast to do what they do. Of course, every day spent by the sea is a good day. But often, you’d rather not burn a bunch of fuel or time to get all the way out to a surf break if it really isn’t happen’. That’s why the ability to predict good surf should be at the top of every serious wave rider’s skill set.
One grand and lovely thing about the ocean is that it’s such an astonishing energy sponge. Whatever is poured into it, it gives back in spades. Commonly, it manifests a response much quicker than any other large reality form you could name. Big earthquakes on land? We’re talking hundred-year cycles, minimum. More often, three centuries or more.
The ocean? Let a storm churn over seawater for a week, its energy is absorbed, and swiftly reinterpreted as wave forms. What’s fascinating about the process is how the chaotic power of gusting winds can become, not just random peaks and chop, but large and regular swells, with a long period between the crests. Go up on an overlook like Point Bonita or Land’s End, and you can see wide-wale aquatic corduroy rippling in to shore. I mean, after a mid-ocean storm has blown strongly and steadily in the same direction for a few days.
How can a surfer know for sure that a good day is coming? Even with satellites and websites and buoy reports, prediction still remains an inexact art. But, over the decades, and over all the years of recently developing technology, I have concocted a few procedures that generally keep me from throwing my boat on my truck and making a long drive, only to find out that the surf is crap.
First, a West Coast surfer needs to see big meatballs coming ashore. By which I mean, the red blobs indicating storms coming our way, best visualized on the U.S. Navy’s FNMOC website. Another method of discovery is to look at some of the many surfer sites. My personal favorite is the StormSurf site operated by Mark Sponsler. (Just type the key words into a Google search to find these pages.) He’s not only a SF Bay Area local, Mark’s a big wave Maverick’s surfer, which means he’s got a ton of personal motivation to call it right. That said, Sponsler tends to do what most surfer websites do, which is: be fairly optimistic.
In my view, such optimism in itself is not problem. I do want folks to get excited and call my attention to the possibilities. However, I don’t really pop my cork until I see a serious swell show up on the NOAA offshore buoys. The first reliable signal comes (unless we’re about to see a rare SW swell made by a typhoon off New Zealand) from Station 46006 (LLNR 510) – the PAPA buoy located 600 nautical miles west of Eureka; or Station 46059 (LLNR 382) – the buoy 357 nautical miles west of San Francisco, which gives a reading of waves about twelve hours before they hit the coastal breaks. You can find links to these buoy readouts at the NOAA site generated at Monterey, http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/. Just click on the “buoys” link in the left column. An interesting feature of the NOAA buoy page is that it also offers links to the CDIP buoys, which are near-shore, and report swells with a dial-like graphic that shows not only wave strength, height and period, but also direction.
This brings me to another key point. You can’t really predict what will happen at a given break until you know it really well, and have seen it operate under all kinds of conditions. That’s how you can eventually figure out what sort of conditions you prefer. For example, at Pillar Point, I tend to want a four-to-six foot NW to SW swell breaking at a two-foot-plus incoming tide, with the wind blowing ten knots or less. At Bolinas or Santa Cruz, I want a ten-foot (at least!) swell coming from the W or SW, at a low or even minus tide, with wind of fifteen knots or less. In every case, I want the period between major wave crests to be at least fourteen seconds or better.
My favorite swells are the ones I call, “over-square,” meaning that the period is much longer in seconds than the crests are high in feet. That fourteen-second number, by the way, is a pretty good rule-of-thumb. Drop below it, and the odds are that the surf will show up in scattered peaks, rather than magnificent rollers. Doesn’t mean you can’t ride, but true glory will be elusive. On the other hand, get to sixteen seconds between crests or (hallelujah!) twenty seconds, and you could find yourself elevated to the bliss of quarter-mile rides.
A final point is that, the bigger the surf becomes, the more crucial the wind conditions are. For example, an offshore breeze is great for making large wave walls hold up, but beyond a certain point – say, 10 mph – that same wind can stall your boat at the top of a drop, which can mean: A) you don’t make it, which is no fun; or B) you get caught in the lip and get thrown down with the falls for a serious pummeling, which (depending on your definition of fun) can be much worse. A different effect occurs with an onshore breeze. A small amount will add some push to the backs of waves, making them travel and close out a bit faster. But a strong wind will beat the surf down, and sometimes make peaks flop in surprising ways. That’s why the best situation is what I call a “crack-the-whip” scenario: a big open-ocean storm generates swells and sends them our way, then the storm itself veers away to go pound the snot out of Seattle or L.A… and meanwhile, those big, graceful rollers cruise in to our reefs and beaches, glittering in the sunshine, as bluebird skies glow high above!
Note: This posting is written in honor of wave warrior Eric. Somewhere, dude, may you be dropping down a silky wall of seawater, with your eyes open wide with delight, and your famous, cackling laugh trailing behind you.
What’s your favorite way to predict surf? Share your knowledge by clicking below!
Excellent post, Paul. Thanks for contributing to the blog! It’s interesting to me to read about all the ways to get information on sea conditions. Whenever I went kayaking with Eric, we never checked anything. We’d just go to the beach, see what was there, and figure out something to do. Whatever the conditions were, we’d deal with it. Luckily we lived 5 minutes away, and if it was really windy or foggy and horrible we just wouldn’t leave the house. But once we got to the beach we always got on the water. That was just the way he did things. However, I recently had occasion to be grateful for NOAA. I was visiting with Andy and Connie Taylor in Elk. Connie and I had planned to kayak, but that day it was really windy, so we checked NOAA. The prediction was for 13 foot swells at 9 seconds and 20 – 30 knot winds with 40 knot gusts. We didn’t go.
Nancy, I can really identify with dealing with whatever is there when you get there. Of course, living right near the water does help! I do check the marine forecast, wave prediction sites, and surf cams, but when I arrive at the site, I may end up doing more storm sea kayaking, or rock gardening, than surfing. But there truly is nothing like surfing perfectly formed waves with loooooong rides in the pocket!
Tony
Good job Paul.
Reading this I want to load yet another surf boat for my road trip this week.
I agree about first hand experience at any given surf spot under different conditions. I might add, as a kayak surfer, it is also helpful to remember what variables are best for board surfers. I remember showing up at Bolinas on a “perfect” day, only to find it packed with aggressive young guns from SF. The locals both laughing and muttering about this because it was too big outside.
I do regularly check the NOAA bouy site. As a fisher and diver, I think I get an accurate idea of conditions here on Sonoma/Mendo coast.
Bad weather could be a challenge at times where surfers or kayakers go for the water. Like you, nothing beats a perfect wave and flow of water for surfing and kayaking.
Great post, Paul. Very informative and the best way to check the surf. This is how I did it when I lived in California.
Now that I live on a beach on the South China Sea I get the surf report by stepping out on the bedroom balcony.
However there is a disadvantage to living on a short reach sea, wave period. You are killing me talking about those long periods I used to love in CA. Here a good day is five or six seconds. The best day might be ten. You get used to it. What are you going to do? Still, I get some smokin’ rides in my sea kayak.
When it gets down below four seconds it’s time to break out the surfboard. The kids can do two seconds. Yeah, I know, I didn’t believe it either until I saw it.
People are adaptable to new situations, and no matter what, any day on the water is a good day.
Thanks for the post, Paul. I enjoyed it, a walk down memory lane.
Thanks, Nancy, for keeping the site going. I never actually met Eric, but I miss him.
Glad you enjoyed the post, Mike. Wow, a reader from the South China Sea! How would you like to do a blog post on surfing there? I’d love to see some photos.
A really great and fascinating post, Paul. Reading it drives home the point that I know virtually nothing about predicting surf. So much to learn, and time just flashes by. I love your description of the ocean as an energy sponge.