California’s Massive Swell

We are seeing strong storms in the central and eastern half of the Pacific especially the Gulf of Alaska. This is leading to some big waves in Hawai’i and Northern California. California is experiencing a combo of XL South and West North West swell. Our waves around here were were at an average of about 10-15 feet with the exceptions of bigger sets that rolled through that might’ve reached 20 feet at select spots. Many spots up north around Santa Cruz, Big Sur, Cambria, and Half-moon Bay were seeing waves 20-40 feet. My friend and I decided to take a long drive to every spot along the San Luis County coastline and we saw some ginormous waves. We started out at Pismo and the waves were breaking past the pier. The waves were so powerful the pier was shaking a lot and the water was splashing onto the pier. We then went to Seal Cove. There is one peak over there that is huge and rarely breaks. Next spot was Saint Anns. A guy I surf with was surfing a peak here and his leash snapped and it took him like 20 minutes to swim in. Another guy was out too and we watched him catch waves that were at least  3 feet overhead. Then we got to Spyglass and it was really big and messy. When we were leaving I got stung by a bee. After that we cruised to other spots that weren’t that cool. Our last stop was Avila and I was very surprised. The waves at the left point were a pretty good size, maybe a foot or two overhead. This is where I took the picture at the top of the article. The thing about Avila is that it’s very shallow giving us a nice hollow wave. My friend and I sat on top of my car for a long time watching the beautiful barreling waves. This rare October swell is beginning to fade away but we should still have some nice size waves for a while!