Another fine day at Perkins, Nov - Dec 2009, taken by a friend.
Today was pretty awesome at Officer’s Club. I checked the pier, and it was a little small, so I went a little down south to O Club. I paddled out 3 hours after high tide, should have got out an hour before, but it was still pretty glassy.
It was waist high with occasional bigger sets, and some really long longboard rides to be had. I took 5 really fun rides, and 30 minutes, I was pretty stoked. I had a lot to do today, so 5 great rides made the trip worth it!
Well, if you read last nites post, we had a bigger swell coming in for Wednesday morning. Now it shrunk a bit, and what scares me is the strong offshore winds tonight that may push it away from our beach.
It is a very strong period swell, but that doesn’t promise anything. If it does hit the beach. I believe the best we will see is waist high waves down south, and hopefully something big enough to ride here in the Cape.
Hey, at least, the time to get out is 10 AM (2 hrs past high tide so its high going low). This gives us, a nice sun to drench us, and 62 to 65 air temp by that time.
I believe there will be something fun and rideable.
As most of my friends know, I’m fanatical about watching big wave surfing, awards, etc. This video is the 2009 Billabong XXL Awards highlights. I still want to post the 2010, especially since the 2011 hit the mid-year point.
It’s interesting to see how guys like Greg Long from California and Grant “Twiggy” Baker from S. Africa show up in all the finals. And Greg Long was the one who edged out Kelly Slater at the very last minute for the “Eddie” award. Kelly Slater would have won it twice (never done), and two back to back contests for the “Eddie”.
My signature maneuver 🙂 Photo taken by a friend at Perkins, Nov - Dec 2009.
Our four foot 9 second period swell will probably be hitting the beach in the early AM Tuesday and we could have some NNW light off-shore winds in the early daylight hours. But it will be around 48 degrees at daybreak or colder. The water temp is 59 degrees right now at the Port. By Wednesday, it may be up to 60. Hurahh……….
Then by late morning, the winds should be going NNE, and this should be bringing in our long period 13 second period Nor’easter swell in the late afternoon to early evening. The winds probably will be onshore until after midnight Tuesday, and then Wednesday morning the swell should be 3.5 feet at 11 seconds with W winds in the daybreak hour, and switching around to NW by late afternoon, in the 8 to 12 mph range. It should only be around 50 degrees at daybreak Wednesday, but if you wait till High tide going low, (wait till 10, which is 2 hours after high), then the temp ought to be above 60 degrees and sunny, ah yes, sunny.
Wednesday morning, this should bring us some thigh to waist high waves at the Cape, and some chest to shoulder high waves in Satellite Beach with some respectable power.
The shape of the swell, as far as close-outs a bunch, or great shoulders, is a tough call right now, since the swell won’t be that big, and with little time to form, so I would say check out a few breaks, and just choose the one with the least close-outs. Hah, kind of a no-brainer eh?
The cool thing is, that even though the swell drops off a little during the day Wednesday, with offshore winds, it may pickup just a little in size Thursday AM which may also have some offshore winds for us too.
Wednesday morning, high tide is 8:09 AM for the Cape, so you can let it warm up a bit, and paddle out at 10 Am, with High going Low, and have a great session.
Christmas Eve looks like a new swell coming in, in the morning, and with possible strong off-shore winds on Christmas Day.
Friday morning (12/10/10), the waves were a perfect longboard, chest high, pretty chilly, but awesome. I checked out the pier, and it was thigh to waist-high, and figured for the cold, I head to the Satellite Beach rock breaks.
There were 2 other guys out, I joined em, and we had plenty of waves, even at high tide.
Saturday, a buddy of mine came from Lakeland, and we looked at Johnson, and it was waist to chest, and actually barreling pretty nicely. But it looked like a lot of close-outs. So we went down to Hangers, and it was solid head high, with an ocassional 1 foot plus overhead. Throwing really hard, awesome shoulders, definitely some close-outs, but you could judge them coming, and let em pass on by.
This is my favorite video of all time. Every Teahupoo wave and video , and every Peahi, Chile, Ireland, Mavericks wave I have seen since this, still does not compare to Laird Hamilton’s famous 2000 ride.
Another chilly November - December day at Perkins, 2009 by a photographer friend of mine.
We have a 4.5 foot at 15 second period swell that should be fully here by noon Friday, but most of the swell ought to be here in Cape Canaveral some time tonight after midnight.
If the Cape isn’t blocked out to bad we should see some thigh to waist high waves (the swell is from the ENE) , and perhaps chest high plus down south in Satellite Beach. The winds may be NNW from 8 to 11 mph in the morning, both in the Cape and Cocoa Beach.
It should only be 50 plus degrees at daybreak, and rising fast but it’s a trade off between cool temp with low tide and NNW winds at dawn patrol or waiting till high going low (high tide around 10:45 AM), so 11:30 Am, but winds switching out of the North but 65 degrees 🙂
I believe I’ll do dawn patrol, if there’s no morning sickness in the water, maybe the pier or one of the North wind breaks on this side of Minuteman Cswy. Keep in mind, that the huge Nor’easter on Nov. 14th was supposed to have NNW winds which isn’t a good call for the Satellite Beach rock/reef breaks, but they turned out to have the most epic surf. See the pics here: https://j-avenue-surfers.com/2010/11/14/cape-canaveral-huge-noreaster-surf-update-report-observation-111410/
Saturday should have some good leftovers, and Sunday we’ll just have to wait and say how strong and big the swell is.
Suit up, and enjoy the swell , cool weather, and maybe we’ll have some shoulders lining up for us!
Another chilly November, December '09' taken of me by a friend of mine at Perkins.
It was pretty fun down at Hightower park break, waist to chest high, with some bigger drops. It was an hour before low tide, but the swell was big enough that no rocks stuck their nose out. It was Pretty clean, semi-glass, since the winds jumped around NNW to ocassionally NW.
Only 3 of us out, so there were no profanities necessary out there 🙂 Two guys from Broward County checking out some Brevard surf, they seemed pretty stoked and they got a bunch of rides, shredding pretty nice, and then me out there. I was kooking this sesh a little, but thank God I caught a killer, large set right that had a nice long shoulder 5 or 6 seconds with a crazy initial drop, so it made the sesh totally worthwhile 🙂
I checked the pier (n Johnson Ave.) but my street was closing out, and the pier was glassy, but only about thigh high, and at 45 degrees air temp, and 69 water temp, I don’t know, it just seemed worth checking out some bigger size down South in consideration for the ‘Chill Factor’. Hightowers was the right call.
It looks like we have plenty of Nor’easter activity again headed our way, but it looks like most of the swell will be pushing away from us offshore, so for now, its doesn’t look like anything solid coming to us till past Sunday anyhow.
Swell breakdown explanation chart from magicseaweed.com for Wednesday, 12/1/2010
It was fun thigh to waist high waves at the pier today. Nice clean shoulders, with judgeable closeout avoidance possible.
Crowds were nothing at all either. Fun 2 hour session.
My apologies, on the hint of this substantial long period ground swell producing almost nothing though.
As I look at the 120 mile buoy and the moving topical swell chart, 2 things appear to be screwing things up. One, the swell isn’t one solid mass, it has a number of sections that make it look like Swiss Cheese, if you will. The second thing is, this Northeast cold front is producing such powerful offshore winds, that it is literally keeping the swells out there pushed offshore.
Full swell breakdown chart, compliments of magicseaweed.com, for Thursday, 12/2/2010
I know all this sounds anal-retentive, and that’s because I am, and I was a UCF Marketing Major who loved eingineering classes and taking Differential Equations, loves to surf , and does websites, go figure…
You can read the explanation of why I thought we would have nice fat waves Thursday, but I just looked at the wind forecast, and it does not change from NNW until 6 am Thursday, and then it goes North. So what I said below means that we may not have the waves until Friday, or late Thursday evening some time. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Feel free to read the explanation below so that you’ll at least think I wasn’t on acid tonight, when you see the waves tomorrow (Thursday morn).
With that said, look at the first of the two images, and click on it to see the enlarged image above at the Full Swell Breakdown, compliments of MagicSeaweed.com, and you can see that the 1 st column is what all the data people say is the swell hitting the beach (not wave size, swell size). Mostly MSW, since they are the most accurate in forecast data. But the 2nd and 3rd columns, for say 12 noon Wednesday (today) would say that we have a nice swell hitting the beach, but column 4 is a significant wind swell created from the cold front 20 mph offshore winds, that is pushing directly against the Primary and Secondary swell.
But then, if you look at the Thursday chart, you will see the wind swell (column 4), is no longer pushing west but now NNE. That’s telling me that 8 or 9 hours after those little arrows turned NNE, the real swell should start hitting the beach. If not, then I’ll drink some Jim Beam, and go direct traffic on a busy street so I don’t lose my sanity.
Anyhow, with all this said, we should have some waist high waves to chest between Johnson or the pier, and bigger sets down south at the rock reef breaks in Satellite.
I’m done. Now for some dinner. Thanks for humoring me.
Looks like we should have some waist high glass in Cape Canaveral by early morning, probably by 7 Am. I’m taking a chance saying this because the swell was already decreasing at 5 pm today, with the waves coming in from the SE at a sharp angle, which usually means dying swell, but with the other swell coming in close, I think we’ll have nice waves in the Morning.
As I mentioned earlier today, the wind speed starts around 10 – 12 mph SSW or SW at daybreak, and starts working its way around to the NW by mid day in the upwards of 15 – 20 mph NNW or N.
The new ground swell with a really long period 13 to 15 seconds starts rolling in by late morning to piggy back this departing wind swell, but the size should hold to waist high in the morning, and increase to Chest high by evening here, and bigger down south at the Rock breaks near the base, on down to Perkins , Hightowers lime reef breaks.
Clean right, eventually, chest high at Perkins, Nov. 2009, taken by a friend.
It should be high 60’s in the morning, but my early to later afternoon after the rain, it should start dropping pretty quick with the air temp.
Thursday morn (about 45 degrees in the morning , should have chest high with NNW winds till mid morning and then out of the North .
Enjoy the last warm day for a while, and some good surf. High period swells without a huge area to develope and over an extended period of time often have many closeouts, so you’ll have to let a lot of waves pass by from Wednesday night on thru the rest of the high period swell. Figure some gusts may hit 16 to 20 mph so that stuffs gonna blow in your eyes. A heavier board would’nt hurt.
Have a great surf Wednesday morning. Weather gets crappy by around 11 Am. But then as the front passes, temps drop Wednesday, and more waves with North winds will blow hard.
November 2009 a photographer friend of mine took this of me during a chilly November day at Perkins.
We have our respectable size wind swell among us, which may also throw a nice gift our way Wednesday morning.
Wednesday morning, The size could be waist high here in Canaveral with some winter glass, textured kinda stuff, bigger south, with some brisk offshore winds starting at at SSW for daybreak in the 12+ mph range , and picking up throughout the day up to 15 +, switching to the NNW.
Then we have a back to back really high period ground swell coming that should jump right onto this wind swell, which should be at the beach sometime between 2 Pm Wednesday and dinner time. The winds ought to be out of the North with some hints of offshore, but mostly North, so it could be pretty friendly up here at the Cape. Pick your North wind blocker spot and head out.
I’ll look at it closer tonight after I can see how the winds intend to cooperate with us for Wednesday morn.
Hope to see ya out Wednesday morn! If it’s waist high, then Johnson Ave. is it, otherwise, maybe a trip down to Hangars.
Johnson Avenue Surfers 