My lust for huge wave videos continues, (Click the 4 little arrows just right of the HD letters on the video to see this full screen, its awesome) but first, our local update……We still have a small swell approaching what seems to be Thursday night after midnight, on our beaches Friday morning. Now, will the offshore winds Thursday and Thursday night keep the small swell from hitting the actual beaches, that is the question.
Thursday morning, there may be some fun knee high waves at the Cape here. High tide at 7:20 am approx., so anytime after that if you have a long board.
Friday morning, we could have some thigh high waves here, if………..the offshore winds don’t keep it offshore. The reason why I believe we could get something, is the moving swell period chart comes sweeping in a few hours before daybreak with a 9 second period and a fetch that looks to be 500 miles or so.
Best scenario, thigh high and glassy. Worst, glassy shorebreak and a nice day to surf fish 🙂
Saturday the period drops one notch, but also a chance of something rideable then.
I’m trying to be optimistic and realistic. 50/50 chance for Friday morning fun waves.
The video, is a huge swell that hit Puerto Escondido Mexico with some 30 to 50 foot faces, and a crowd of the big waves surfers there.
A picture I took with an exhumed 35 mm camera with not prior practice, just to get some pitiful shots of a huge Halloween 2007 swell that we had. This was a 12 foot plus face wave that I shot from the back of Cocoa Beach pier. It was about a 2 1/2 board stacked end to end face so the guy had a pretty good fall.
We have a small swell approaching what seems to be Thursday night after midnight, on our beaches Friday morning. It’s an east/southeast swell, oh what a surprise ! for the direction, that is looking to bring some waist high waves Friday morning with offshore winds as the models show right now, and a bump up to stomach or chest high on Saturday with offshore winds in the morning also. When I see the 4-5 feet at the 120 buoy Thursday evening and winds only out of the east to bring it to the shores for Friday morning, then I’ll get real excited…….
It actually looks to be between a simple wind swell, and a wannabe ground swell. By Friday morning, the fetch of the swell has one big solid blue stretching out about twice the length of Florida out eastward, so this seems to represent a small low pressure system, but definitely small.
Since this swell doesn’t stretch out the desired 1000 to 2000 miles in width, the models and arrival of said swell can change drastically, but since this is the wave dry time of the year, I feel like getting excited about it.
The picture to the left was humorously taken with a 35 mm camera that I dug out of a closet back in 2007 for a huge Halloween swell that we had. I had no zoom on it, didn’t remember how to use it, but I had taken a few pictures of Kevin, owner of Cape Surf, but this particular pic I took because the guy riding the wave wiped it pretty good, and the wave face height was 2 1/2 times the length of his board so he had a pretty good fall when this wipe out was done. Yeah I know the quality of the pic is hard to see the wave size, but it’s easy enough to add at least two board lengths to get the minimum face height.
Anyhow, fingers crossed for Friday and Saturday. Waves for July 4rth weekend would be nice.
Here is what the Gulf Coast surfers for Anna Maria Island had to look at this morning, unlike the photos that 16streets.com had to show, and the water temp at the gulf is 91 degrees, vs our 85 degrees, so we can count our blessings, compliments of gulfster.com
We do have a narrow little swell out there as you have noticed from a walk to our beaches, (the photo to the left is what the Gulf Coast of Florida, Anna Maria Island had) my guilt abounds for not mentioning this slight incoming swell on Wednesday night. It is really small and narrow in width but it is showing in the 3 to 3.5 foot range at 8 to 10 seconds at the 120 mile buoy.
The winds should be offshore Friday morning for a couple hours, before daybreak and until mid-morning, unless the scattered thundershowers take control of the situation differently. (as mentioned by Ross and myself, the winds are often sketchy to predict, however, weather.com has been over 60 to 70 % accurate for me when used 36 hours before or less).
We could very well have some glassy thigh high plus waves Friday morning for awhile. I don’t believe the offshore winds starting light after midnight will blow it flat, but……………that is always a possibility.
Getting out at daybreak will get you out at almost optimum tide at just slightly past mid-tide high going low.
We also have a weak windswell approaching , beginning a little on Saturday and dribbling in on thru what appears to be Wednesday as the models show right now. Don’t expect much, and then if it’s rideable at some point, hey you’ll be happy.
Today (Saturday around 12:00 PM) at Lori Wilson Park, they had a contest and the waves were nice even with the fairly strong onshore winds. Size was solid waist to stomach high with maybe some bigger sets. Fairly long workable shoulders for longboarders and some nice sections for shortboarders. Friday nite in Satellite Beach they were waist to stomach high with high onshore winds but really good form around 5:30 Pm for longboard, marginal rides for short board.
Quiksilver Ceremonial Punta de Lobos 2011contest, from magicseaweed.com, the first contest on the big wave tour event.
Sunday morning, it should be solid waist high plus in Cocoa Beach and further south. At 6 Pm Saturday night it was around 4 feet at 8 seconds at the 120 mile buoy, and between 11 and 12 today it climbed up to 7.5 feet at 8 seconds, so at least its still a solid wind swell. Oh yeah, the winds should be NW at first light and turning NNW for an hour or so and N to NE sometime between 9 and 10 Am.
Yeah, predicting the winds can be iffy, but as I looked at the weather.com hourly winds for Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach and Satellite Beach, for the last 36 hours, it’s been consistently showing those wind models, so I’ll give it a 70% chance of holding true. If I’m wrong, shoot me ! 🙂
Oh, high tide is around 5 Am Sunday morn, and as ya’ll know High going low is always better than low going high. So get out by 6:30 to 7:30 and ya got perfect tides and good winds.
By the way, the best breaks to surf for NNW winds are anything North of Minuteman Causeway. That’s because direct North winds are from 2 to 6 degrees offshore for streets North of Minuteman, and when you get South of minuteman like the streets, 8th, 16th, O Club, Perkins Hightowers, those are all South wind breaks because Minuteman at Coconuts forms a bay if you will that curves out to the left or the right as you look at the ocean. (sorry, it’s an anal-retentive thing I did by plotting Google map with Vectors and all to determine the exact angle each break faces whether it be South or North;)
I forgot, ya’ll know about my obsession with big wave surfing events, the video here is Chile, Brazil’s Marcos Monteiro took top honours in the season’s first Big Wave World Tour event at the Quiksilver Ceremonial Punta De Lobos Big Wave Invitational in 30ft plus surf. Many of the big name big wave surfers were there. The list of the full cast of the 2011 Quiksilver Ceremonial were: Jamie Sterling, Kohl Christensen, Grant Washburn, Carlos Burle, Marcos Monteiro, Peter Mel, Ben Wilkerson, Cristian Merello, Greg Long (won the Eddie against Kelly Slater), Gabriel Villaran, Frank Solomon, Nic Lamb, Joao De Macedo, Eric Rebiere, Sebastian De Romana, Rusty Long, Felipe Cesarano, Andres Flores, Ramon Navarro, Diego Medina, Fernando Zegers, Reinaldo “Chacha” Ibarra, Matias Lopez, and Leon Vicuna.
Anyhow, have a great sesh Sunday, and stop by the The 10th Annual Waterman’s Challenge, June 11-12, 2011 contest at Lori Wilson or actually International Palms Resort to show support which starts at 9:00 Am I believe Sunday morning for day two.
Full size images below if you want to click on them and see full screen.
Dave throwing back a fan while surfing a waist to stomach high glassy day in South Cocoa Beach. May 14, 2011.
This was Saturday morning May 14, 2011 in South Cocoa Beach.
Sunny and his Dad, Dave the Ripper as Chad likes to call him :), along with Chad and Jim (Johnson Ave. group) caught a great surf sesh from a 3 or 4 day swell, nice and glassy for Saturday morn, yeah there were close-outs, but definitely some great waves in the waist to stomach high range.
Here is 6 or 7 pictures of Sunny Dave ripping up the best to be had that day. A couple of the photos below are 2 sequence shots. I hope you enjoy the gallery, and as we get more pics, we’ll get them up here for ya.
Surf report for Friday morning is a ridable wind swell at the right breaks 🙂
Okay, well, what we have is a wind swell (without a significant low pressure system to call it anything better than that), and as Ross at CFLSurf.com says, we’re gonna have 3 foot plus face
A nice backside wave, the 1st pic of a 2-shot sequence of Sunny Dave. May 14, 2011, Saturday morning.
waves, and the further south you go (to like Satellite Beach), the bigger and better form you’ll have.
The two days to tune in for are now Saturday and Sunday morning. Friday could bring in some waist high plus waves south with 8 to 10 mph east winds until around 9 or 10. The form could be fairly decent, and with low tide at 9:15 approx., if the 2nd punch of the swell gets here before 9, then it could be light 9 mph winds and waist high plus. By late morning, the winds will be increasing to the 12 to 20 mph range out of the east.
Saturday and Sunday morning it could be a little bigger with some stomach high plus sets, and close to calm winds with a chance of offshores for an hour or so from before daybreak on Saturday until 7 or 8. By Friday night I should know the Sunday morning winds within a reasonable accuracy. (50 to 80 % ha)
Second pic of a two-shot sequence. Dave making the guys half his age look tentative by comparison. Dave the Ripper 🙂
For Saturday it’s looking moderate 10 to 15 mph winds by afternoon. But it may be ridable and fun at the right tides. As of now (Friday 10:00 am) I have an update from Thursday, the models show NNE winds in the 4-6 mph Saturday morning, very good for the North wind breaks like the Cape, 4rth Street North. It shows 8 mph N winds from 7:30 to 9 Am Saturday, which means offshore winds for the Cape ranging from 3 to 7 degrees offshore depending on where you go at the Cape. 4rth street North is about 6 degrees offshore with North winds if your car is running ;(
Sunday morning, as the models stand right now (Friday 10 Am), shows 8-10 mph WNW winds at daybreak which if it doesn’t get blown flat overnight, could be an awesome waist high glassy session. The caution is, the winds are supposed to turn NNW at midnight Saturday and slowly turn NW in the 8 mph range, and winds like that blowing all night on a wind and not ground swell could go either way on flattening out the swell or not, we’ll see.
The models change every 6 hours, and keeping in mind that this is a wind swell and not really a low pressure system to speak of, we will have to update this tonight after 8 Pm when the models have change again.
Hey, we keep sounding like a broken record/8-track/cassette/cd/dvd/blue-ray, but we’re not supposed to have waves this time of year, and like last summer we weren’t supposed to have pre-hurricane waves all summer but we did. So enjoy what we get. For now, no jellyfish except an ocassional Cannonball or a Disc (white and flat, whatever they are).
The Pacific Coast is getting a Hurricane right nowAdrian, with 115 mph winds (the update is the hurricane strengthened to 135 mph but as it gets close to the San Diego parallel it starts to hit colddd water), it’s just under 400 miles west of Acapulco, so Acapulco, El Salvador and maybe Baja Mexico will be getting some great waves. Now the Cane is only heading west at 9 mph, so Escondido must be slamming. Acapulco rocks, deep and nice warm water. I surfed Acapulco in November a long time ago, warm water, unlike Baja Mexico such as Ensenanda, K-38, K-55 close to San Diego. There it was like 57 to 60 degrees in July – August, when Cliff and I surfed there a longggg time ago 😉
Later,
oldwaverider
Another nice sequence, Chad catching a nice reflection on the face, the one that Dave is going to deliver an aerial or close to it, on the 2nd shot. May 14, 20112nd shot...I hope Dave doesn't mind, but, Not Bad for an Older Guy 🙂 ...Sunny? What up?Another nice backside sequence of Dave, nice shots by Chad.Pic 2, Dave refusing to let the white throw him off the board till he can make good with the leftover face.
Dave, (Sunny's dad), getting ready to setup for a nice right, while surfing a glassy sesh in South Cocoa Beach, May 14, 2011.
Great waves this morning at Hightowers.
Solid waist high (I’m 6′ 3″ tall for the record) with an ocassional stomach to maybe a chest high wave came thru. A 7 to 8:30 session with only 1 other person out! Glassy, with both lefts and rights working great.
NO JELLY FISH AT ALL!
You could pass up the close-outs, and mostly just take the ones that would hold up all the way to the beach. (longboard) But the short-boarder I was out with was getting long rides too, so long or short boards worked great.
Strange, it was dead high tide, and yet the waves were working great, not holding back or any problem.
Forecast for Thursday; the winds this morning were a total fluke. So this one’s gonna be tough. It was supposed to be 8 mph onshore east winds at daybreak, but instead it was 2 to 4 mph wnw this morning.
The 120 buoy is telling me that we should still have some waist high waves at least down south for Thursday. The winds from weather.com are showing 6 to 8 mph ene at daybreak, depending on the Cape to Satellite Beach.
But, with this high pressure that just slid in above us, we may have fluke glassy waves in the morning, so the wind call is totally iffy.
Waves for the Cape, maybe knee to thigh. Looks like we have maybe 2 more days of this wind swell. Enjoy it while you can.
The picture above is Sunny’s Dad, Dave the Ripper (as Chad calls him 🙂 Also, I will have a nice Gallery of photos of Dave from the waist to chest high day we had back on May 14th Saturday morning.
Johnson Avenue Surfers 