After a couple of false starts, the season has finally started! The swell arrived Thursday just before sunset. I surfed the whole thing from those first pulses in the near dark through yesterday when the sets were fading. Soooo good to be done with summer slop.

I finally found a 12 foot Paddle Surf Hawaii gun and surfed it through the whole swell. I only meant to surf it on the big days (Friday mostly) but fell in love with the thing. Its an absolute rocket and really nimble for a big board. Gets in so easy and even handles steep drops surprisingly well, and makes chop mostly a non-issue. Its funny I also bought an 8.10 x 30 JP right before the swell as well, which surfs the pocket so nicely, but its going to be hard to make the decision to paddle out on it when the PSH gun is such a joy to surf. I can totally see why people would surf this thing in all conditions.

Hope everyone within range got some! And here's to another year of swells!

You should get some good juice today.

Just got off the water 9 - 14 feet and building.  I wasn't using my 12' PSH gun but thought about it because of this post.

I would switch to that 12 foot dream catcher later today (if I could go back out).

Give us the report.

Forecast was for Big . . . . really Big but this morning was . . .

 marginally big: 9 - 14 feet with long waits between sets.

I decided to take out the 12 foot Paddle Surf Hawaii Gun, dust it off before the big wave season really kicks in.

If you get the chance you have to try a big wave gun in large waves.  Today was what we call a Blow Dryer Day.  15 waves in relatively big conditions and I got out with dry hair.  The 12 foot PSH gun is like a Cadillac it just lets you in nice and early, although it is a fair amount of work, and keeps you safe from death and destruction.

Forecast below with New Ride & Board & Trace Wave Stats from the session.

So far this has been the swell that wasn't. It's funny though, only Surfline was calling for "15-20" or "20-25", magic seaweed was calling for a much more accurate 10@15, as was NOAA. I don't really understand the Surfline predictions anyway, what use is size without period? But still what a disappointing swell so far. Surfed 5.5 hours since this was a "hold all my calls" type day, the morning on my short board (8.6 jp), then switched to the 12' gun since was tired of missing the backing off waves.

Was exactly as you called it up here, 2 wave sets every 15 minutes or so if you're lucky, a bit overhead and some nice clean walls. A few awesome rides but far between. Would have been an awesome day for August or September but with all the expectations was a bit sucktastic.  First world problems I know.

Beasho I was down around your way on Monday, paddled around from jeff clarks new place to your cove. Such an awesome paddle made easy(ish) on the gun. Washing machine in full effect with the south winds. And that place between the cove and the harbor sure is spooooky! All those boils and bull kelp waving around and sets hitting the submerged boulders in unexpected spots made for a really good Halloween installation.

If you get the chance you have to try a big wave gun in large waves. The 12 foot PSH gun is like a Cadillac it just lets you in nice and early...

The numbers out in the lineup on the big days is going up. But the group is still small and orderly compared to small and medium size surf population.

And with the right board, leash and float, quite the gentleman's undertaking in the smaller big stuff.

Tomorrow should be a good notch up! Here's hoping!

Sure was building strongly last I looked around 5pm.

Today, 15s@13ft.  The ocean looks like boiling milk. 

Must be Beasho out there at Steamer Lane, it looks like a "Beasho Day".

I decided to defer going out today. I didn't feel that great and the surf cams made things look formidable looking. Maybe I'm suffering a bit of red tide toxicity.

  I went down for a walk and to observe 41st Street around 4:15 PM.

At that time, the surf was large, but because of the very steep northwest angle of the swell, the fade was reasonably aggressive going down the L41 toward Capitola. It looked quite manageable down to Privates/Sharks at my current skill level. However, I counted to 100 surfers between 41st and Privates before I quit counting, they were like fleas on a dog's ass.  It was also kamikaze surf with guys who were going to get their irregardless, with the four to eight takeoffs and wish you were the survivor.  I would be surprised if the emergency rooms aren't full today, and the surfers kept rolling in.

The air was cloudy with salt spray all the way to my place a mile from the beach.  I went down to look at Pleasure Point.  The point itself and first and second break were basically enormously walled overhead to double overhead close outs in quick succession and non-negotiable. The first area to have anything resembling open faces was straight out from O'Neill's place and to the right WAY out where a hard core knot were sometimes catching stuff.  There was one stand up guy who must have had real skills, because he made it out over the massive white waters to get outside, and he caught one double overhead looking like a walk in the park going up and down the face coming in.

It was a 'defer to live another day' for me, and may be that way for the weekend, though I think I will do some dawn patrol on Sunday no matter what.  The weather is warm and clear, and everybody in the world is going to be out there this weekend.