Sports
The surf report gets my blood moving. When I check the Web, and my favorite beach is overhead, I start to dream. I can almost feel the adrenaline rush of dropping into a large wave and accelerating out of the Green Room. If you are a surfer, you have many tools available to you already that will allow you to check out the surf at your favorite beach. The average view of surfers is the Gen-X kid who goes surfing before school every day and may or may not make it to school, depending on " the conditions, dude."
In reality, many surfers already use high-tech surf tools. One is the Surf Fax that is sent a few times a week and is an excellent predicting tool for the week or days ahead. Another uses a beeper that will beep you when your favorite spot is double overhead and glassy. Or "what ever conditions" you have set for your beeper that will cause you to drop everything and cruise to the beach in your restored 57' Chevy stationwagon--generally not the high school kid. You think I'm kidding about this-- I'm not!
There are also the old phone lines -- you dial the number for surf reports and then press 1 for the Chesapeake bay surf, press 2 for Tampa Bay bay surf, press ......press 205 for San Onofre. You got to be kidding I can't stand waiting for the choices on the phone. Some of these services pay their reporters to stand at phone booths near the surf so they know the person is not lounging on their couch reporting surf conditions(some people just can't trust surfers).
Well, let's get down to some real information. The whole package is brought to you by the Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP), a cooperative program supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the California Department of Boating and Waterways. CDIP is operated by the Ocean Engineering Research Group (OERG) within the Center for Coastal Study which is a cooperative program supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the California Department of Boating and Waterways. CDIP is operated by the Ocean Engineering Research Group (OERG) within the Center for Coastal Studies at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. This page links to other pages of general interest to the surfing community. It includes the Local Weather/Marine and surf forecasts for Southern California. If you prefer you can check the GOES IR and Sea Surface Temperatures for the latest satellite and infra red photos for the east or west US. How about a tropical storm track- yep tracks the tropical storms that influence our surf and its updated every 3 hours. If you don' believe this data then check the current Scripps pier surf snapshot for a current camera's eye view of the surf "real time." I got to tell ya I just love the Web.
Now lets go all the way and pull up the "mother of all surf reports" and see what we can see there. The Southern California Swell Model which is put together by Bill O'Reilly a Ph.D. in Oceanography or Surfology or something like that. He is by the way a surfer--shortboard-- and has been surfing since 1984. He surfs near the Scripps pier and works at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and lives in Berkeley (bor@nene.berkeley.edu). "He lives in Berkeley?" All this is done through the magic of computers and the internet. He quotes Garry Trudeau; "We've developed a lifestyle that doesn't require our presents."
Now lets go through these delightful pieces of information. We will take the obvious one first. How high are the waves at my favorite beach right now? I can select Orange county and quickly view an X Y graph of the surf height from Lower Trestles to Seal Beach.
Funny. When I look I am amazed that the height can be so different from one beach to the other. So I check the Estimated Deep Water Directional Spectrum, which just happens to be on the same page. It show the interaction of the waves with the islands and points or anything else that might impede the wave coming to your beach. This is presented in a graphic satellite view with shadows cast in the appropriate intensities to convey the information. The image can be read for direction of swell fairly well from the same page using the small image without having to see the detailed image. The following detailed images can be viewed. West Santa Barbara Channel , East Santa Barbara Channel , L.A. - Orange county , San Nicolas Island , San Clemente Island , and San Diego County .
Those charts will explain not only how big the waves will be but also why such a large difference can exist between the surf at two different beaches. You can get a more detailed report on your favorite beaches by clicking on one of the following: San Diego County, Orange County , Los Angeles County , Ventura County , and Santa Barbara County .
I imagine our future trip: armed with the essentials, we set out for the beach with our boards, wet suits, wax, and babes, but we have to check the conditions. We fire up the portable computer that is attached to the dash board by Velcro because they don't do this in cars yet and we are surfers. We type in our password and hit Enter. The system dials through our local line cell phone to our Internet provider and voila-in seconds we are on the Web. Two or three more clicks we are checking the wave heights at all the beaches within reach of a tank of gas and the stop light hasn't even turned yellow in the other direction yet.
I still haven't found the Web site that has all the surf rules. I have been surfing for 25 years and people still want to tell me the rules about surf etiquette. Believe me when I say that there are no universal rules. I'm just glad that I'm better than the average surfers so that I can blast past them on the wave and give them the evil look that implies they violated a rule and pissed me off --dude. Truth! Just be polite and have fun and I will see you in the water somewhere of Southern California.
Some other links you might be interested in:
Save Sunset Beach
Save Sunset Beach Coalition - Haleiwa, Hawai'i.
Surfrider Online
The Surfrider Foundation Home Page.
Surfing Links/Newsgroups
Usenet alt.surfing, lots of links to other surfing related sites...
Reviews, Papers, Reports, FAQs and Software
Articles, reviews, papers, FAQs on surfing related issues, and related software.
Picture Gallery
The picture gallery - most are small JPEGs that link to larger GIF images.
Don
