Two New Year's WNW Swells

Tuesday January 3, 2012 - First swell of the new year, and the first of two back-to-back WNW "larger" swells. The hallmark of both these swell events was not wave quality, but crowd quantity. I've never surfed with so many people in the L. It was, in fact, what everyone was talking about. Perhaps it was the "perfect storm" of school holiday, decent waves, unemployment, furlough days and early retirement. At any rate, things may never be the way they were. That said, I surfed a full 2.5 hour session at Tweeners and Sarges, taking down quite a few waves for how crowded it was.

Friday, January 6, 2012 - This was the second of the two, much over-hyped and under delivered BIG swells that slowly made landfall on the 5th. It was a bigger swell and it's saving grace was a lot of west in the swell. While it was bigger, it was far from big. Surf was consistently in the chest/head range with overhead waves in many of the sets. With all the west in the swell Yellow House and Poopers opened up and while it was small there, it was way less crowded than the spots up-coast. I surfed Apartment House Point for about half of my 3.5 hour session and got a lot of waves, all in the waist/chest range with maybe a very occasional head high peeler. While the rides were relatively short, there were open faces and whackable lips which made for energetic, roller coaster surfing, which I like. Near evening the surf dropped off with the incoming tide and I paddled back up to Sarges to take one in. I ended up staying there for an hour as the surf had really picked up in quality. In a word, it was firing. Clean, fast, chest/head spinners from the point to the nudie beach and beyond. It was probably the best I've surfed there this season. My Kodak Playsport Zx3 screen went black though. Same problem I had fixed under warranty last April. It's still under warranty and it's off to United Camera repair on Monday. Can't complain, it's the best and cheapest little waterproof video cam I've tried and they've backed it up twice now. I'll just replace it after the warranty expires, which I had planned to do anyway. The short vid is what I got before the screen went out.