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.
Full size images below if you want to click on them and see full screen.
Chad coming off a nice glassy lip in South Cocoa Beach. May 14, 2011, a nice Saturday morning session with his son Chase.
This was Saturday morning May 14, 2011 in South Cocoa Beach.
Chad with his son Chase, Sunny, Jim and Dave the Ripper caught a great surf sesh from a 3 or 4 day swell, nice and glassy, yeah there were closeouts, but definitely some great waves in the waist to stomach high range, with maybe some bigger sets.
Chase, (Chad’s son) came along to put on a show (see photos below 🙂 along with the surf sesh. Even if the waves were flat, it wouldn’t have been boring.
Also, the incoming wind swell for Memorial Day Weekend looks like it’s kicking in a tad more size and power. And it may even rollover till Thursday now, and………bring in some waves Sunday morning instead of waitin till the afternoon.
By Sunday afternoon, we should see some waist high waves at the Cape here, yeah 10 to 20 mph onshores, but like I said yesterday, we aren’t supposed to have waves by now, so get excited. Monday ought to have some fun chop, with a drop in the swell
Chad dropping in on a nice glassy right...Sun, glass and warm water...same wave as aboveA good day 🙂
by late afternoon/evening.
Then Tuesday, the size may kick in to maybe some chest high waves at the Cape with bigger sets down south, though the period (power) of the swell drops off until Wednesday some time where the size drops but the power kicks in a little
Chase thinking, not a care in the world...and spending a great day at the beach with the "Old Man :)"figure it out 🙂 ...ChaseChase agrees, it's a great Day!
more. Again, I don’t see an offshore winds window yet, but if we do, we’ll pass it on.
Full size images below if you want to click on them and see full screen.
Sunny on a nice stomach high left...
The photos are of Sunny taken by Chad , I think.
This was Saturday morning May 14, 2011 in South Cocoa Beach.
Chad, Sunny, Jim and Sunny Dave caught a great sesh from a 3 or 4 day swell, nice glassy, yeah some closeouts, but definitely some great waves.
A 3 shot sequence of Sunny, followed by a couple of miscellaneous waves.
By the way, Sunny does do rights also 🙂
Same nice left...3rd shot in a sequence of SunnyAnother nice left for SunnyNice lip to work
Oh, guess we don’t want to leave out the incoming Memorial Day weekend wind swell for Sunday thru maybe Wednesday.
Hey, we’re not even supposed to have waves this time of year, so get pumped that we’re at least getting some wind chop waves.
Maybe, we’ll see some shoulder high sets down south, but I figure we ought to see a day or two of waist high plus at the Cape since the wind swell is direct east.
Right now, I’m not seeing a window of off shore winds, but when we get to that 3 hour window, we’ll let ya know.
Enjoy the pics, and the waves late Sunday afternoon over Memorial Day weekend.
jellyfish found at the end of johnson avenue, may 25,2011. This is image one taken with a phone.
Jellyfish are strung out all along the water, and even up into what appears to be dry sand for the first 5 feet or so. Out in the water, YouTube had videos showing Cannonball Jellyfish (never heard of them but glad to catch the name).
The type at the end of Johnson Avenue in Cape Canaveral and I know up to Lori Wilson Park are a purple looking jellyfish, 1 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter, with purple tentacles, 8 of them according to Wiki, but it was hard to see all of them.
One of our local surfers got nailed at the end of our street. And I know of someone else that got it in back of one of the resorts south of Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach.
Keep your Vinegar or Ammonia bottle sprayer handy in the car. Sudsey Ammonia with half water added did the trick for me once, but the resorts keep Vinegar in a bottle to spray you which works well also.
Some of these Jellyfish, they look like shells, some of them so watch out walking barefoot, and also watch out for the first 5 feet or so of what appears to be dry sand, they're up that far too.
16streets.com had a pretty good write up on the situation with the Jellyfish and what type they are.
For the really curious person, here's a close up 🙂 of the jellyfish.
Saturday morning waves at Hightowers at daybreak, stomach to chest high and glassy with insane lefts and really fun rights. High tide was damping a lot of spots, I even saw 3 cars leave 2nd light while I was at the light. Hangers was too high tide, but Hightowers was rockin.
Now, for an old friend from high school filmed by another old friend Gary Powell (he’s not old, just a friend from way back 😉 …
Check out the video here…
Tony McMahon, a friend from way back (high school ouch!), playing lead guitar for Sky Dogs The Project Movie. Tony in the black shirt with the trippin red trim shirt.
He ripped “Free Bird” better than Lynrd back then in high school. Ain’t no one that would argue that!
This is a concert on May 15th, 2011 in Gainesville, FL, they’re playing classic Southern Rock, especially Allman Brothers.
Our swell chart at 7 Am this Friday morning, compliments of magicseaweed.com
It was great this morning ! The Cape was totally blocked out by this part of the swell.In Satellite it was shoulder high on the drop w chest high shoulders and glassy until around 7:30 Am! Then it dropped off to waist high for an hour and then kicked back up to waist to chest. Still glassy when I left about 8:30 Am.
The next punch of the swell will kick in some throughout the day today (Friday) , in fact it just hit 6 feet at the 120 buoy at 9 Am this morning at 11 seconds which travels about 18 to 19 mph which would take 7 hours approx. to actually hit the beach. Last night at 9 Pm it was 4 feet at 10 seconds. So by 4:00 Pm today, the new surge will hit. The final punch of the swell coming in will be between 10 Pm and 1 Am tonight. It should hit between 7 and 8 feet at the 120 buoy.
I believe in Satellite Beach it will have some 1 foot overhead drops at least with shoulder high maybe head high shoulders down the line. The winds will be SW around 8 mph and by 11 or so turn WSW on into the afternoon. The period will have it’s main punch from dinnertime tonight throughout Saturday morning. It will have way more punch than it did this morning.
Saturday 1 Am morning swell chart size, looks to be around 7 to 8 feet at the 120 mile buoy. Magicseaweed.com
Sunday, it should be waist high plus down there, strong strong offshore winds, and then dropping throughout the day Sunday.
The moving swell chart pics here (frozen at 7 Am for this morning and the 2nd one frozen at 1 Am tonight), show how the swell will still be coming in until around 1 or 2 Am.
I believe the size will be as I said, the winds will be blowing offshore at 8 to 10 mph for 4 or 5 hours but I don’t think it will drop the size any yet since the swell period is still coming in.
Friday's 7 Am swell period chart. Compliments of magicseaweed.com
This is one powerful swell!
It’s going to be building too, all day Friday and even throughout Friday night until just before daybreak Saturday. But that’s not why I’m saying it’s powerful.
The period of the swell is pushing between 11 and 14 seconds between the beach and the 120. Then you might say, oh crap, an 11 or 12 second period swell for us is all closeouts. Well you’d be wrong! Just kidding with the intensity. But you would be wrong 🙂 The quality of the low pressure system is what makes or breaks the swell, and it does help if you surf one of our reef breaks that can hold it better when it gets hollow.
This swell has a fairly uniform set of period bands in it. Not anything as good as the Nov. 14th, 2010 swell (see the 2 links below) with perfect waves, but……….when I looked at the rock breaks in Satellite Beach today, even with the onshore winds in the 10 to 15 mph range, there was some sweet shoulders holding up, so imagine a South wind break with a quality swell. After looking at the Satellite Rock break, then I looked at 2nd light and O’club, and then a block south of 16th street, and the beach breaks were not holding up well, were at least a foot or two smaller.
Saturday morning 7 Am swell period chart for May 14, 2011. Compliments of magicseaweed.com
Alright, I’m long-winded 😉 Friday morning rock breaks south of 2nd light should be solid head high waves, with 5 to 7 mph South winds, but I believe we could see a little SSW or with a gift from above possibly SW until 8 Am or so. These waves have lots of power, and are very hollow.
Saturday morning, I see the swell being a foot bigger at the daybreak, very possibly a foot overhead on the huge sets, with SW winds at daybreak, hollow, plenty of makeable waves and some sweet barrells. If you have a camera, bring it. The drift will probably be gone by Saturday too. The tides are perfect. Friday high tide is around 4:15 Am, and as you know high going low is best for us. So get out by 6:30 or 7 at the latest Friday to catch the slight offshore wind window.
Saturday, High is at 5:20 so anytime after 7:30 should rock! Unless the storm suddenly moves, Saturday should be epic. For 3 or 4 days straight, the models have been showing SW winds for Saturday, so I would bet $ 20 that it will be SW till at least 10, and probably pushing till past 12. Strange thing is, I don’t think it will hit 8 feet at the 120 buoy, I believe more like 7 feet Friday night, and yet we could have 7 foot face waves Saturday morning before the swell starts dropping a little in the afternoon Saturday.
Take a look at the swell period chart (the first image) for 7 Am Friday morning, and notice the fairly uniform period bands, instead of little dots of color all over the place, it is one solid blue with the mega period coming in late Friday nite for Saturday morning. The next pic is Saturday morning which is getting to 75 % of perfect storm. (Nov. 14th was thee perfect storm) The last picture was from today with plenty of power but the wrong winds, and the swell was still coming in even though the period was high.
Thursday morning (today's) swell period chart at 7 Am. Compliments of magicseaweed.com
Today, it was thigh high at the end of Johnson with onshore winds but some fun drops, some shoulders and a little power. I saw Scooter get an awesome and long left, and his wife got are really long, to the beach right.
Saturday morning is almost a perfect storm but not quite. Not like Nov. 14th, 2010. Go back and take a look at the pictures from Satellite Beach on that day, and look at the swell period chart I placed there I think the day before. It was a bigger swell, but they are similar in their perfection.
Okay, have a great Friday sesh, and have really mega-sesh on Saturday, God willing he keeps the conditions on target.
Johnson Avenue Surfers 