My buddy Rob took this pic while on a weekend trip with his family in the last year. This is K-38, a great surf break in Baja, Mexico that Cliff Hirsch and I surfed and camped, back when it was just a cliff, dirt and gravel to camp on with no facilities. The American dollar changes a lot 😉
Sunday morning looks great! 3.5 feet at 11 seconds. Shouldn’t be to bad on closeouts. It’s a nice groundswell, as we could see with the long lines today that held up fairly nicely when it was offshore and light onshore before noon today. (Saturday)
Should be waist high at the Cape and Chest high at 2nd light and beyond. Winds, calm to light offshore out of the West to NW until probably 10 Am, then switch to NNE.
Get out while it’s offshore! Though the winds when they turn onshore stay under 6 until noon, and then stay under 10 the rest of the day. Water temp is 65, but air temp 50 at day break, but turns sunny fast.
A buddy Rob that I surfed with at hangers back in February, his daughter took this pic back around Christmas, which is from Newport Beach, surfing Newport Beach Pier wave
Okay, our incoming swell from the last 2 days I believe is about to deliver the ground swell portion by noon on Thursday. That’s when the moving period chart catches up with around 9 or 10 seconds, which hits the beaches around 11 or 12. Winds should turn SSW by late morning and SW by 12 or 1 Pm in the 15 to 20 mph range. Swell size should be around chest to shoulder high down south by 2nd light, Hightowers, etc., and hopefully waist high here at the Cape. Could be bigger sets, but it depends what we see overnight coming thru the 120 buoy. We did have some waves hit the 120 at 11 seconds but not real consistently, so its hard to say what the power will be. But I’m optimistic it will be a lot of fun, and a little challenging to catch waves.
Friday morning the swell weakens at the 120, but we may still see some waist high sets or bigger down south, with NW winds in the 10 to 12 mph range.
Saturday morning a new long period swell hits as the Friday swell dissipates, so there ought to be something ridable as they pass the baton to each other.
We’ll cover more as the Saturday swell gets closer.
Looks like the winds do turn offshore late Sunday afternoon. SSW by around 1 PM, but turn SW at 10 -12 mph by 3 PM. It should be head high down South (2nd light, RC’s etc.), and waist high to maybe chest at the Cape. Low tide is around 2 PM, but don’t worry about it, just Get it while we have it!!
Monday morning, it looks like NNW till 9 AM, in the 10 mph plus range, so the North wind breaks (North of Minuteman Cswy) will work best for that.
A convenient Brevard County swell, 3-5-10, taken by Gulfster.com photographer.
Our nice fat swell continues with it’s ping pong game. More after this note below about the photo on the left.
The photo to the left is just to set the tone for our Sunday, Monday swell 🙂 It’s a pic taken by Gulfster.com, and it happens to be 3/5/10 when the pic was taken. They come over from Anna Maria Island on the Gulf to Brevard very often when we have a large swell, and they load up with photos of their own people, and some Brevard people. To see some other great Brevard swell photos and to see the other great stuff at their website, check here to see their 2010 batch of photo days.
On this side of the net, it’s back to Monday being the main offshore day, with the swell reading at 4 feet at 9 seconds. With the size fetch of this swell and the large sections of 9 to 10 second swell period in the ocean, I think we’ll see some head high waves down south, and chest high at the Cape. I don’t think the winds overnight will blow it down much in size. At daybreak, I’m guessing the winds will be 10 to 15 mph out of the WNW and will back down to less than 10 by noon. It should be close to epic, if the storm stays on track.
Sunday, now looks like potential offshore in the late afternoon, out of the SSW around 15 to 20 and backing down a little before dark.  You need to surf a south wind break, meaning anywhere south of say 6th street south, ideally one of the breaks in Satellite Beach where some areas are close offshore winds even directly out of the south. Sunday should be overhead, so by late afternoon, if it does go offshore, it could be 1 to 2 feet overhead in Satellite and shoulder high to possibly head high at the Cape.
Saturday night I’ll have the most accurate wind directions, when I only have to look at 48 hours. The local weather forecasts for every 15 minutes over 48 hours get it pretty accurate.  We’ll keep you updated then.
Had to toss in this killer 2009 video of Ian Walsh and his brother surfing jaws on Christmas Day, 2009. Click on the first link of the names of Ian and Luke.  They launch their jet ski in the dark which takes a few minutes to see the actual surfing.
A shameless recycle of a 2009 Perkins pic, taken by a friend.
Looks like we have a 5 to 7 day swell coming in, the same puppy I mentioned Saturday.  It actually has a 3 punch makeup to it. I also believe we will see the lines of a just barely ground swell at least by Monday, if not some time over Saturday and Sunday. It won’t be just a wind swell, I’ll stick my neck out here on this 🙂
First punch hits the beaches Wednesday morning with the full power of that part (when the period of the swell catches up with the waves, usually a day behind the waves), hitting Thursday afternoon, with yes onshore only winds. Wednesday morn the winds ought to be in the 10 to 15 mph ENE range, and picking up slowly thru the day, probably not to the 20 mph range. By lunch time Wednesday we should have some head high waves down south, and waist to chest here at the cape. The best paddle out time Wednesday is around 8 am with high going low, meaning, the most gentle chop conditions, otherwise just before dark.
Thursday morn, the winds start out at probably at 15 mph plus, ENE, and increase throughout the day as it delivers the full force of the swell period. (the swell is coming from the east, with some southeast on it) I believe Thursday late morning we should see some overhead waves like 1 to 2 foot overhead down south and head high at the cape. Paddle out time Thursday for the most mild chop will be around 9:30 to 10:30 am or just before dark.
2nd punch , Friday the heavy 15 to 25 mph onshore winds stay on it, with some 2 to 3 foot overhead waves down south, maybe bigger. 2 hours after high tide is the most gentle paddle out time.
Right now, it looks like 3rd punch Monday morning as chosen to be the offshore winds day instead of Sunday as the swell wraps around to the gulf, and maybe even some leftover offshores for Tuesday. Monday looks like it could be chest to shoulder high (down south, and waist plus at the cape) with strong offshore winds in the morning mostly west (over 10 mph maybe 15), but they should be slowing down as the day progresses.
Tuesday morning looks like it could also be offshore out of the NW in the chest high range south and waist at the cape, eventually turning North, but that’s pretty far out, as is calling Monday, but it is a big storm(swell), so unless it speeds up or slows down, we should see our glassy waves on a couple days for two 4 or 5 hours sessions from either late Sunday, on Monday or sometime Tuesday. God’s been good to us the last 20 months on waves eh?
We’ll keep ya posted as conditions change, or remain the same 🙂
Two converging swells Saturday 9 Am, 3.6 feet at 10 seconds, the top one actually arrives late Sunday. Magicseaweed.com
Well my apologies for over estimating swell size for Friday. We did get the overhead waves down South on Thursday, but not today.
My guess Saturday morning, is fun waist-high waves early morning with 4 to 6 mph NW winds until 10 Am down south. At the Cape, I suspect barely rideable.
Today, at Hightowers was waist to stomach and semi-glassy, but since it was high tide when I had to go out, it was fairly weak in power (8 to 9 am). Long board only for sure. The short boarders just didn’t look like it was to fun for them.
I was pushing to get out early this morn, to catch the offshore winds, but it didn’t matter, hindsight I would have waited till mid-tide (right at 10:30) to paddle out down south.
At Johnson Ave.,  Dr. John got a couple of nice rides, a really nice left while I was watching, but our size here was knee-high with maybe an ocassional thigh high.
Saturday, we do have a converging Nor’easter coming to meet the easterly swell that may make a push on the swell we’ve had the last 2 days, and it looks like two 3.7 foot 10 second swells hitting the nearshore buoy. So maybe it will be chest high down South, but as weak as this easterly swell is, I’m not to optimistic.  The new swell comes in late Sunday and full strength Sunday night , early Monday Am. Monday morning looks like chest high potential with off shore winds probable out of the SW.
Enjoy what we do have, cause it’s sure better than flatness 🙂
Skipping down the face. From the harbour Saint Jean de Luz, the Naturgas team motored out to Belharra surf break, at the bottom SW point of France, near the Spain Basque region. Compliments of magicseaweed.com
Quick update for Friday morning. Those of you willing to do dawn patrol, I believe we will have offshore winds, SW winds light, until 9:30 Am the very latest. Probably, only till 8:30 Am.
Size should be waist to chest at the Cape, and head high down south. There is a chance of a few over head waves down South. Probably more overhead sets than on Saturday.
Saturday, looks like NW winds till mid-morning at best, but also chest to head high, with possibly a few overhead waves.
oldwaverider
More from the new XXL entrant, Belharra break in SW France.
Our incoming swell should bring us some waist to possible chest high waves at the Cape today, with chest to overhead sets coming in down South, at Patrick and Satellite Beach. It does look like the swell may not hit the size as the models showed 2 days ago.
I looked at the pier this morning, at dead high tide and it was waist high, with about 5 short-boarders out and 1 long-boarder. Not a strong swell but hopefully as the swell rolls in thru noon, it may strengthen. It looked fun though.
The winds will be ramping up today from 10 to 15 mph out of the ESE, but……..Friday morning at daybreak it looks like they will drop to 2 to 4 mph SE so there should be some really fun lines coming in, waist high plus at the Cape and chest high plus down South.
Saturday morning still looks like we will have offshore winds, it looks like 5 to 8 mph NW winds at daybreak, and waist here, and chest high down South. The water should jump up to 65 by Saturday, so toss the suits, and skin it while soaking in the sun at 78 degrees !
France Basque country gets huge XXL swell. See the great photos at magicseaweed.com
This video is from a swell that just hit France, a cove/bay called Saint Jean Luis, as you can see it’s at the far SW tip of France as it hits Spain. See the awesome still shots here.
This has got to be the best close up video footage I have seen of big wave surfing. The backs of these waves look like 20 foot, and the fronts look to be 20 to 30 foot plus overhead. A couple of the guys, just left that huge swell at Ireland, which was also a Billabong XXL big wave entrant. The footage is only a minute, but the waves looks so clean, perfect and makeable (and huge), that they almost look ridable for the average Joe.
Enjoy the swell we have, the warm sun and the kind of waves that Europe is getting right now. Later
Friday we have a 4 to 5 foot 10-11 second period ground swell coming in. (Actually we will see some in the AM, but the full force in late afternoon).  At daybreak, The first part of the Nor’easter swell, probably North winds, at 10-15 mph turning NNE by 8 or 9 Am. Size ought to be maybe thigh high at the Cape, with chest high plus down South. In the afternoon the winds should be strong onshore 15 plus mph NNE winds. The winds may start to slow down by evening. Saturday should be the glass.
Christmas morning, Saturday at daybreak, should be glassy, thigh high waves I hope at the Cape, and chest to shoulder high waves in Satellite Beach. We should have some SW winds 2 to 5 mph until maybe 10 am, increasing to 10 mph by noonish, turning toward the South.
The tough choice is when to paddle out.  Low tide is 4 Am, so daybreak would be mid-tide, the air temp should be 50-52 degrees (not to bad) , and WSW winds around 5 mph. The best tide will be for a noon paddle out (high tide at 10:30, high going low which is best), but by noon the winds could already be out of the South. But maybe they’ll hang in there from the SSW.
Merry Christmas and have a great Christmas surf session!
Johnson Avenue Surfers 