Early morning at the jetty
We’ve had a pretty good run of surf here this summer. I wish I had some more pics of the better days but Daniel was one of the “surf sacrifices” for the first swell of the summer. The 24th of June produced a nice NE swell with clean conditions and the early morning had a few overhead sets with light offshores.
The day before my son Hyatt was working on his car and stuck his hand in the fan blade requiring seven stitches in the pinky finger. Daniel was out surfing early that morning and was caught inside on a larger set . Someone was outside taking off to late , and as Daniel did his duck dive the nose of the pearling board pierced his foot requiring stitches and left a nice bruise.
Todd up at OBBC took a nose to the leg , more stitches and we had all the makings of a surf sacrifice. Small rideable waves followed the rest of the week if you played the tides and the wind and on Monday the 6th of July there was a choppy swell on the south side with a pretty stiff SW wind that picked up overnight.
At about noon that day the wind went north and left us with nice glassy conditions and a nice head high south west swell. The swell changed rapidly throughout the day but some bars worked good on low tide and some worked good on higher tides so you would surf one spot for a couple of hours and it would stop breaking but if you looked around you could find another spot to surf. There has been quite a few good sandbars this summer from the pier all the way to Hatteras which is unusual but we’ll take it and enjoy it.
They have been changing constantly so you have to keep an eye out. For the following 3 weeks weeks we were in a weather pattern that every few days another front would make it either just to or just below the Carolina coast and as the front would stall small little lows would develop along the frontline creating small but fun SE swells that would last from just a few hours on the right tide to a day or two.
Generally the surf has been better at lower tides as we have had unusually high tides this summer and the sand bars on the north side have been real deep with a steep beach except for at the Lighthouse. Many days even low tide looked like high tide. Saturday the 11th was one of the better days, started out choppy in the am with some head high sets, but cleaned up in the afternoon with the dying wind. A soft mushy day it was but hey it is July and July is usually hot and flat with a SW wind blowing at least 27 days of the month. Thursday the 23rd was the best day of the month as a small low pressure area developed to the SE of us moving rapidly up the coast.
Early that morning the wind was NW with both sides having clean conditions and both sides having the same size swell. The north side was peakier and not as clean in the am and the waves were backing off on the high tide. The south side had a nicer lined up swell and because it was SE and not a NE wrap swell it had some nice shape mostly lefts and there were plenty of places working so it was easy to find a spot to surf. As the tide dropped the wind backed up W and then SW so the north side cleaned up nicely and where there had been no sand bars all summer there was now plenty of places to choose from.
It’s nice when you get swells that no matter where you check there is a wave to be had. The following morning early the swell was actually stronger but a SW wind that had blown overnight put a good cross swell into it and the waves were closing out a lot more. It dropped out quick that day and a crossing SW wind messed it up but remember it’s July and there was still waves.
Let’s hope it continues in August. Surf pics on this post are taken by Daniel Pullen on the afternoon of the afternoon of the 11th.
