May Pre-June Gloom

The passage towards summer leads inevitably through the Straits of April and May. Here we find the frigid days of the long, thick marine layer which insulates the Pacific Ocean from all semblance of solar gain. Thus, last early morning water temps were left stiffly clinging to the 48 degree mark for a time.

It was not Mark (Twain) who said it but he surely could have and would have been no stranger to the truth. "The coldest winter I've ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." (Fortunately for him, he missed the Spring...)

The outlook for swell is only slightly less gloomy than our current weather situation, with some faraway south swell modeled (at 138 hours no less) for SoCal but nothing said for us NorCalians (although swells that weakly modeled don't inspire much confidence). So we turn to the NPAC surface winds with some glimmer of hope for a longer period swell than we should rightly expect.

There is some hope for the landing of a longer period swell from the west (are you watching the farshore buoy?) But who would have thought that local wind swell would be so highly favored? Me, as I've learned to discover. Tomorrow? Minus tides might just be the fingers that tickle and coax my favorite reefs into a few giggles. This whole thing may call for an adjustment in expectations....and why not? Sometimes that even works!

Postscript - Sometimes writing is like taking a crap...if you sit there long enough, and push hard enough, something usually comes out. You just hope it doesn't stink too much.