THE Surf Report

Put a quarter in the wave machine.

SURF:

Had fun surf earlier in the week and it's been a slow decline ever since. Today it's pretty flat with just waist high sets from the SW, S from former Hurricane Frank, and a whisper of NW windswell.

Later tomorrow we get a little bump from the SSW for chest high sets towards the OC that lasts into Sunday. Nothing to really get excited about this weekend but the weather will be great and the water temps even better at 77 degrees.

Tides the next few days are about 4' at sunrise, 2' after lunch, and up rapidly to 6' at sunset.

FORECAST:

We have leftover SW on Monday and Tuesday/Wednesday look small, but we get another small boost of SW from the southern hemisphere towards Thursday. Just expect chest high sets again from this one.

We get another flat spell towards the 7th through the 11th (unless the tropics finally flare up and give us an unexpected hurricane swell)... 

...but charts show another small storm sending SW swell around the 12th of August. All in all nothing exciting for the next couple weeks. Make sure to keep up to date on any developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf. 

WEATHER:

Amazing weather this past week (and most of July for that matter). May Gray and June Gloom are in the rear view mirror at this point. High pressure is going to back off slightly (slightly being a relative term) which will allow the inland temperatures to cool off just a bit- but we'll still be near 80 at the beaches. As high pressure starts to retreat this weekend, tropical clouds will movie in from from Mexico. The mountains and deserts may see a few thunderstorms late this weekend into early next week and a few stray clouds could drift overhead at the coast. All in all great weather and no real fog to speak of.

BEST BET:
I wouldn't say 'best' as the surf won't be firing, but mostly likely fun small surf on Sunday with new SW swell or late next week with another small SW swell and continuing warm beach/water temps.

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

Love all this warm weather we’re having? How about those 77 degree water temps? Mmmmm, nice and toasty. Well, this persistent heat on land AND in the sea this past June has shattered records, yet again.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported this week that June 2016 was 1.62 degrees F above the 20th century average, breaking last year’s record for the warmest June on record by 0.04 degrees F, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. NOAA’s global temperature records dates back 137 years to 1880.

For the year to date, the average global temperature was 1.89 degrees F above the 20th century average. This was the highest temperature for this period, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 by 0.36 degrees F.

Some notable events around the world include:

• The globally averaged sea surface temperature was record high for June and the year-to-date (January–June).

• The globally averaged land temperature tied a record high for June, making it the 34th consecutive June with temperatures above the 20th century average. The year-to-date (January–June) average temperature was also record high.

• Much warmer-than-average temperatures contributed to North America’s warmest June since continental records began in 1910.

• Much warmer-than-average conditions engulfed most of Africa resulting in the second warmest June since 1910 for the continent.

• The average Arctic sea ice extent for June was 11.4 percent below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June extent since records began in 1979.

• The average Antarctic sea ice extent for June was 40,000 square miles below the 1981–2010 average, marking the smallest June Antarctic sea ice extent since 2011 and the 13th smallest on record.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

While your living it up in this Hawaiian-like water and 80 degree beach temps, just a reminder on how the other half live.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Top 0.1%
Sunburned From Basking In The Limelight
Most Searched Name on Google For Fantasy Surfer

THE Surf Report- Lite

On the road again. Goin' places that I've never been.

SURF:
Just a quick THE Surf Report tonight. On the road again with my friend Willie looking for waves.

Been fun this past week with swells from all over the place (SW, S, NW) and water temps feeling like El Nino doesn't want to leave.

Today we had new SW fill in and a touch of weak Hurricane Estelle swell and NW windswell. Look for the SW to peak over the weekend with head high sets in far north county and overhead sets in the OC. And to boot- we've got a heat wave on tap this weekend with temps in the low 80's at the beaches and water temps over 75 degrees. Wonder if it's going to be crowded? That's funny.

Tides the next few days are about 0' at sunrise, up to 4.5' at lunch, down to 2' at dinner, and up slightly to 4' again at sunset.

FORECAST:
After a great weekend of surf, things start to taper off. Look for chest high SSW on Monday and down to waist high on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Models showed more storms off Antarctica a couple days ago so we have more shoulder high SW headed our way late Thursday into Friday.

Another storm is forecasted to flare up off Antarctica again in a few days which would give us shoulder high surf again towards the end of July/beginning of August.

As far as the tropics go, Tropical Storm Frank formed off Baja today and is expected to hit minimal hurricane status in a few days. Unfortunately it may die just as it hits our swell window. I'll keep an eye on it for you though. Make sure to keep up to date on the developing surf at Twitter/North County Surf.  

WEATHER:

Feels like August around here. Which means temps in the 80's at the beaches and no May Gray- or June Gloom for that matter. Beaches will be packed this weekend with little or no fog/low clouds. Forecast charts call for patchy fog to MAYBE make a return late Sunday but it won't make much of a difference. Next week cools off slightly but it's still great- and thunderstorms may return to the deserts and mountains.

BEST BET:
All weekend with amazing weather, water temps over 75, and lots of good surf!

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

It's not all heat waves in July around here. Southern California also gets some weird weather around here. Here's 'This Day In Weather History' from the National Weather Service:

2013: Thunderstorms erupted across the mountains and deserts on this day. Radar estimated two to four inches of rainfall in one hour for some of the storms. The newly vulnerable burn scar of the Mountain fire got brief heavy rain that produced a flash flood and a debris flow called an “ash flow.” One of these flowed into a pond, displaced the water, and killed the resident fish. Several other desert roads near Sky Valley, Mecca, and Borrego Springs were rendered impassable from the water and debris. In Big Bear City, some of these floodwaters entered a few homes. In remote Anza Borrego Desert State Park, three vehicles were washed downstream.

1999: Heavy thunderstorms hit the Borrego Springs area causing flash flood damage at Borrego Springs and Ocotillo Wells. A tornado hit Shelter Valley causing property damage.

1987: A rare cold air mass for mid-summer descended on the region starting on 7/18 and ending on this day and broke numerous low temperature records. It was 39° in Palomar Mountain, the lowest temperature on record for July. This also occurred three days previous on 7/18 and the previous day on 7/20.

1965: It was 32° in Big Bear Lake, the latest freezing temperature for the season on record.

1902: A dying tropical cyclone brought two inches of rain to the mountains and deserts of Southern California during a very strong El Niño event of 1901-02.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Todd Glaser is an amazing local photographer who has captured incredible shots around the world. Here's a pic from a few years ago when he worked with Taylor Steele on the film 'This Time Tomorrow'. The word 'gray' usually conjures up negativity (i.e. May Gray, 'in a gray area', gray water, etc.), but this is one gray I don't mind. Make sure to check out his work here.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Undiscovered
Already Made America Great
Snaked So Many People I'm Starting To Grow Fangs

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Summer is my favorite holiday.

SURF:

Not the biggest surf this week- and the OC got most of the lion's share- but the water was 73, the sun was out early, and there were waves most everywhere if you planned accordingly. Tomorrow is more of the same as we have some small SW swell and a little bump of dying Hurricane Celia S swell. Look for waist high+ surf in far north county SD and chest high sets in the OC.

On Saturday we have new small SW swell and building Hurricane Darby swell. Unfortunately Darby is moving away from us (like Celia) and they weren't that strong but it's better than nothing. Look for chest high waves in north county SD on Saturday/Sunday and shoulder high sets in the OC. We also have a little bit of NW windswell filling in on Sunday so the beach breaks could be fun.

Tides the next few days are 3.5 in the morning, down to 2' at lunch and jump to almost 6' at sunset.

FORECAST:
Models last week had a big storm forming off Antarctica (as well as big hurricanes off Baja) but they've turned out to be much tamer than anticipated. Regardless, we have more surf coming by Tuesday.

New SW swell starts to fill in for chest high waves again and peaks on Wednesday with shoulder high waves in north county SD and head high waves in the OC.

Forecast charts also show our 5th named hurricane forming this weekend (Estelle) which should mix in some waist high waves. After that the tropics and southern hemisphere take a breather and we may not get significant surf until the end of the month again. So until then, get on it. Make sure to keep up to date on the developing surf at Twitter/North County Surf. 

WEATHER:

Great summer weather again this weekend once the low clouds burn off. Look for temps in the mid-70's and normal sea breezes. High pressure sets up early next week and we'll be close to 80 by Thursday. Long range models show a return of 'tropical' monsoon clouds headed to our mountains/deserts late next weekend but I don't think they'll end up here at the coast. Definitely a 180 from last summer's tropical parade in our skies.

BEST BET:
Should be a fun weekend even though it won't be big. Better waves and great weather look to be coming next Wednesday with a good southern hemi swell and warm temps at the beach (in AND out of the water).

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

I’ve reported in the past that as the earth warms due to greenhouse gases, hurricanes will grow in strength and frequency. But it hasn’t hit us with a one two punch yet (last summer was due to El Nino of course). So what gives?

Over the past century, tiny airborne particles called aerosols, which cool the climate by absorbing and reflecting sunlight, largely cancelled out the effects of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions when it came to tropical storm intensity, according to a new scientific review paper published this week in the journal Science. That might sound like a good thing, but many of those particles came from the burning of fossil fuels and wood, and contributed to acid rain, smog and lung damage. As vehicles and power plants added filters and scrubbers to reduce their impact on human health, levels of human-made aerosols in the atmosphere began to decline. At the same time, greenhouse gas concentrations continued to rise.

That compensating effect won't continue if greenhouse gas warming keeps increasing, the scientists write. Using model simulations, they provide new calculations of the cancelling effects of aerosols and greenhouse gases on tropical cyclones worldwide. They also take a closer look at the still-developing understanding of how climate change will affect tropical cyclones, also known regionally as typhoons or hurricanes.

"The fact that global warming's fingerprints don't yet jump out at us when we look at hurricanes isn't surprising -- it's what current science tells us we should expect," said lead author Adam Sobel, a professor at Columbia University. "The same science tells us that those fingerprints will show up eventually in more ultra-powerful storms."

The scientists examined a wide range of published analyses of tropical cyclone data and computer modeling, looking specifically at potential intensity, which predicts the maximum intensity that tropical cyclones could reach in a given environment. Their new global calculations of the cancelling effect follow a 2015 study led by Lamont's Mingfang Ting, with Suzana Camargo, also a coauthor on the new paper, that showed similar effects over the North Atlantic, where hurricanes that make landfall in the United States form.

Many factors contribute to a tropical cyclone's intensity. At the most basic, the storm's convective strength -- the boiling motion of air rising from the ocean surface to the atmosphere -- depends on the temperature difference between the surface ocean and the upper atmosphere. Computer models that simulate the physics of tropical cyclones suggest that this difference should increase as the climate and sea surface temperatures warm, and that tropical storm strength should increase with it.

Less well understood is how climate change should influence the number of tropical cyclones that form each year. Computer models now indicate that while the total number of cyclones should decline in a warming climate, more intense, highly destructive storms like Super Typhoon Nepartak are likely to become more common.

We have seen harbingers of that change in recent years: Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Yolanda, killed more than 6,300 people as it devastated parts of the Philippines as a Category 5 storm in 2013. Last year, Hurricane Patricia became the second most-intense tropical cyclone on record when its sustained winds reached 215 mph before weakening to hit Mexico with winds still powerful at 150 mph.

The scientists' review finds that the largest increases in tropical cyclone potential intensity are expected to be at the margins of the tropics, particularly in the Atlantic and Pacific. The amount of rain that tropical storms bring is also expected to increase as the planet warms, due to increasing water vapor; and coastal flooding from storm surges that accompany tropical storms are expected to become more of a problem as sea levels rise. The scientists also describe a shift in tropical cyclone tracks toward the margins of the tropics, noting that it is unclear if the shift is a response to warming. Simulations for the western North Pacific suggest that it is, at least in part.

Two factors make it difficult to detect greenhouse gas-related trends in tropical cyclone intensity, as the authors explain.

One is the influence of aerosols. Model calculations indicate that aerosols have about twice the effect of greenhouse gases on a tropical cyclone's potential intensity. So while greenhouse gas levels have been greater than aerosol levels for many decades in terms of absolute magnitude -- which is why the planet has warmed by about 1.5?F since the Industrial Revolution -- they have only recently surpassed the cooling effect of aerosols in terms of their influence on tropical cyclone intensity.

The other challenge is natural variability. Tropical cyclones are relatively rare -- the world averages around 90 per year -- and that number fluctuates from year to year and decade to decade, due in large part to natural causes. It is statistically difficult to detect long-term trends within that large natural variability, Sobel said. Satellite records that can monitor tropical storms worldwide also only go back to the 1970s.

Scientists at Lamont, including Sobel, Camargo and coauthors Allison Wing and Chia-Ying Lee, are using both observations and computer models to expand understanding of how tropical cyclone behavior has changed and the physical mechanisms by which climate affects extreme weather. Among other projects, they are developing a tropical cyclone risk model that can be used in urban planning that incorporates climate factors in determining the probability of a tropical cyclone making landfall at a given location.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Took this pic from my backyard last week. My wife wishes we never bought this place- I never get any yard work done.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Untouchable Like Elliott Ness
Olympic Hopeful
Punk 'Cause I Wore My Springsuit In The Fall

THE Surf Report- Early Edition

Blas is gonna be a blast.

SURF:

Just some leftover SW/NW this past week for waist high waves around town and chest high waves in the OC. Cool conditions too didn't make the surf look all that enticing.

The real excitement though was Hurricane Blas off Baja the past few days. Hitting Category 4 status yesterday, Blas had top winds of 140 mph. Blas unfortunately was moving away from us in a westerly direction, so the swell this weekend won't be that big here in north county San Diego. But considering it was pretty flat today, I'll take anything. Look for the morning low tide on Friday to kind of kill the swell but by mid-day we'll see chest high surf from the S as the tide and swell fills in. Far north county will be shoulder high, southern OC head high, and a rogue overhead set towards HB. Blas will peak late Friday and Saturday morning will have some leftovers.

Sunday we'll have some waist high+ waves around town (and chest high+ sets in the OC) as NW windswell picks up.

Water temps are still fantastic at 73 degrees and tides the next few days are 0' at sunrise, up to 4' after lunch, and down to 2' at sunset.

FORECAST:
Looks like we're in for a good run of surf the next 2 weeks. You read that correct- 2 weeks.

The NW windswell peaks on Monday as new SW fills in. Both swells aren't that big but we'll have chest high+ surf most everywhere.

Tuesday is a transition day as the NW/SW backs off but charts show a new hurricane forming- Celia- that should give us chest high+ waves again and overhead sets towards HB starting late Wednesday and peaking Thursday.

AND THEN... models show more storms off Antarctica sending shoulder high waves from the SW next weekend.

AND THEN... models show another hurricane forming off Baja late next week (Darby) that may give us chest high waves again towards the 20th.

But the real story is the models showing a beast of a storm off Antarctica next week which could give us 8'+ S swell around the 20th also. Make sure to keep up to date on the developing storms at Twitter/North County Surf. 

WEATHER:

Not much to talk about on the weather front the next week. Good weather is forecasted Friday/Saturday then a weak cold front moves by to the N and kicks up our clouds a little bit Sunday/Monday. That clears out next week and we're back to great beach weather with temps in the mid-70's. No June Gloom or tropical moisture headed our way for the foreseeable future.

BEST BET:
Tomorrow afternoon compliments of Blas. Or fun combo surf on Monday afternoon. Or if Celia behaves- more hurricane swell next Thursday. And hopefully a big SW swell the weekend of the 20th. Confused? When in doubt, just paddle out...

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

If you’ve ready the North County Surf Blog lately you’ll remember the story on the increase of shark attacks lately (http://northcountysurf.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-surf-report-early-edition_26.html). Various theories abound but TIME Magazine has an idea on the rise of attacks- and it’s not because sharks are getting fiercer.

The increase in attacks—59 in 2015, up from 31 in 2011—is connected to climate change, experts say. According to a study by Progress in Oceanography, climate change is pushing sharks and other marine species northward. At the same time, warm weather means people are more likely go swimming, a potentially fatal combination. According to the Florida Program for Shark Research, seven people have died from shark attacks since 2005.

“Each year we should have more attacks than the last because there’s more humans entering the water, and more hours spent in the water,” said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research. “What you see is more of a human activity than a shark activity.”

Most shark attacks take place in Florida, California and Hawaii, where tourists often visit beaches. The number of tourists in Florida, where the most shark attacks take place, has risen every year since 2009, to 106 million last year. Meanwhile, there’s also been a gradual increase in the number of sharks in the water.

In the last few decades, sharks have been increasingly exploited. Sharks were caught as bycatch starting in the 1960s, meaning they were incidentally caught during the commercial fishing of other fish. Later, sharks became targets in fisheries that expanded rapidly in the 1980s. As a result, shark populations have declined. Now, thanks to fishery regulations in the U.S., shark populations have been gradually increasing since the start of this century, but recovery is slow.

“To get them back to manageable levels is going to take decades for many of these species,” Burgess said. “We’re talking 30 years or more.”

But even as shark attacks have risen, an individual’s chance of getting attacked by a shark has not, Burgess said, because the human population is increasing faster than the shark population.

“The key here is, human plus shark equals attack,” Burgess said. “The number of humans and number of sharks influence the chances of them coming together. … With more on each side, the greater the chance of the two coming together and having an attack.”

Or my simple solution: Don’t surf in Orange County where it seems like a scare happens at San Onofre, Corona del Mar, and Huntington Beach on a weekly basis.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

All this shark talk is making me see things. Like today's Pic of the Week; those rocks in the line up look like giant shark fins. So I'm not paddling out. And the absence of anyone out and the exposed reef is a little creepy. And I'm taking a wild guess it's sharky. You paddle out first.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Supernatural
Vote Glenn This November
Sponsored by Outerknown

THE Surf Report- Late Edition

No fireworks this weekend.

SURF:

Had a pretty good run there lately, didn't we? Sunny skies, warm water, and heaps of surf. Today we have dropping SSW swell for chest high+ surf, water temps in the low 70's, and overcast skies. For the weekend the swell drops unfortunately and the cloudy skies linger at the beach. Not much to celebrate it looks like. Did I already tell you though the water temps are in the low 70's? I guess we can strike up the band for that one. By Sunday the leftover SW groundswell/NW windswell will give us waist high waves.

Tides the next few days are 1' at sunrise, up to 4' mid-morning, down to 2' mid-afternoon and up to a monster high of 6.5' at sunset.

FORECAST:
Not much to talk about next week either. We don't have any SW swells or real NW windswell on the charts. Maybe some knee SW/NW with waist high sets through the work week.

Models do though show twin hurricanes forming off Baja next week. I'll believe it when I see it. If it's true, we could see shoulder high sets from the S (and overhead sets for the OC) around the 9th.

Further out, models show the southern hemisphere coming to life again and we should see shoulder high sets from the SW around the 11th.

And a bigger storm is forecasted to build in a week or so which would give us overhead SW again towards the 18th. Long story short- no surf in the near term but lots after the 9th of July.

WEATHER:

Our heat waves are officially over. Weak low pressure is setting up shop on the west coast this weekend and into next week. What does that mean? Cooler than average temperatures for July and clouds lingering for most of the day at the beach. Should make seeing the fireworks in Del Mar a little tricky. Things should get back to normal around here by next weekend. Make sure to keep up to date on the weather this weekend at Twitter/North County Surf. 

BEST BET:
Today as we still have rideable SSW swell. Next chance of good surf won't be until at least the 9th of July so split work early today! (If you haven't already).

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

I love spooky surf spots. Not to surf of course, just to talk about. Like Potato Patch and it’s swirling waters in front of San Francisco Bay. Or the ultra sharky Dungeons in South Africa. My favorite though: Our very own Cortes Bank 100 miles off southern California. But just what is Cortes Bank? Well if you’re not apt to go take a boat out there and do the research yourself, then just sit back in your comfy chair and let our friends at Wikipedia explain:

Cortes Bank is a shallow seamount (a barely submerged island) 111 miles west of San Diego. It is considered the outermost feature in California's Channel Islands chain. At various times during geologic history, the bank has been an island, depending on sea level rise and fall. The last time it was a substantial island was around 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. It is quite possible that this island was visited by the first human inhabitants of the Channel Islands, most notably San Clemente Island, whose seafaring residents would have been able to see "Cortes Island" from high elevations on clear days.

The shallower reaches of the bank comprise about 15–18 miles of  sandstone and basalt and rise from the ocean floor  just over a mile in depth. The shallowest peak, the Bishop Rock, rises to between 3 and 6 feet from the surface, depending on the tides. Other spots range in depth from 30 to 100 feet and are a hazard to shipping.

It has long been reported that the Cortes Bank was discovered in modern times by the captain of the side-wheel steamship Cortes, TP Cropper. In 1853, during a voyage from Panama to San Francisco, Cropper reported seeing the seas "in violent commotion" above an uncharted seamount that would eventually be named after the ship. Cropper at first thought he was above a volcano. However, it seems likely that the first modern sighting of the Bank was not by Cropper but by US Navy Lt. James Alden and Captain Jonathan "Mad Jack" Percival. This occurred on January 5, 1846. At that time, the frigate USS Constitution was passing well off the US West Coast from Monterey to see duty in the Mexican American War. The logbook of the Constitution from this day puts the ship in the vicinity of the bank and reads: “At 4-20 (p.m.) discovered breakers bearing N.E. about 10 miles distant. Alden would eventually become an officer with the United States Coast Survey, an organization charged with mapping the U.S. coastline. In the wake of the Cortes sighting, and because of his own earlier sighting, Alden dispatched the crew of the USS Ewing to discover the source of the open ocean breakers. Under Alden's orders, Lt. TH Stevens discovered and mapped the location and a rough outline of the Bank, which was for years incorrectly named "Cortez Bank." Stevens discovered waters around 54 feet deep, although he failed to discover the dangerously shallow area around the Bishop Rock, and it does not show up on the first Coast Survey map published in 1853.

Bishop Rock is today marked by a nearby warning buoy. It was named for the clipper ship Stillwell S. Bishop that reportedly struck the rock in 1855, then continued to San Francisco with a patched hull. Among other notable events in the history of the Cortes Bank is the fairly disastrous exploration of the Bank for treasure in 1957 by Mel Fisher. He was convinced that the wreckage of a Spanish Galleon lay on the seafloor off the Bishop Rock. The expedition found no treasure, but the ship carrying Fisher burned nearly to her waterline.

There have been at least two efforts to turn the Cortes Bank into an island nation. The most notable occurred in late 1966, when a team of entrepreneurs planned to turn the Cortes Bank into the constitutional monarchy of Abalonia. The general plan was to scuttle a WWII era concrete hulled freighter—probably the Tampa-built McClosky ship Richard Lewis Humphrey atop the Bishop Rock in very shallow water and surround the ship with an ever expanding ring of boulders so she could be used as a seafood processing factory. The group reasoned that international maritime law would allow them to become the rulers of their own nation because the Bank lay in international waters. The ship was instead destroyed atop the Bishop Rock by the same waves that are surfed today and her crew was nearly killed. The wreck of the Jalisco today lies beneath the surf zone in three pieces in 6 to 40 feet of water. When another company planned to form a nation called Taluga, the US government declared that the bank, as part of the continental shelf, was US territory. On 2 November 1985 the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65) struck the Cortes Bank reef about one mile east of Bishop Rock, putting a 60-foot  gash in her outer hull on the port side, ripped-off her port keel, and severely deformed her outboard port propeller blades. She continued operations, then went into dry dock at Hunter's Point Shipyard for repairs.

In the summer of 1961, a surfer named Harrison Ealey of Oceanside, California became one of the very first people to surf a wave at the Bishop Rock. In around 1973, surfer Ilima Kalama, father of famed big wave surfer Dave Kalama, nearly lost his life when the abalone fishing boat SS Jalisco he was aboard sank on the Bishop Rock in the middle of the night.

In the early 1990s Larry Moore, photo editor at Surfing magazine, and Mike Castillo, veteran surfer and pilot, made flights out across the bank on rumors of giant waves. During a monster swell in 1990 they were astonished when they found empty waves breaking atop the bank in the 80 to 90 foot range. By 1995 Moore had seen and photographed waves and that year he led an expedition with a small group of surfers out there (including Surfing magazine editors Sam George and Bill Sharp) and pro surfer George Hulse. The team found relatively small but glassy waves in the fifteen foot range, and George Hulse was the first to catch one. "It was the only time I wrote out a will before a surf trip," Sharp said of the mission.

Several surfers planned for the ideal conditions at the bank. In 2001 a storm called "Storm 15" in the Gulf of Alaska and a high pressure ridge over California came together to create huge swells but light wind over the bank. A team of surfers went out on the F/V Pacific Quest from San Diego, with big-wave tow surfers Ken Collins, Peter Mel, Brad Gerlach and Mike Parsons, plus paddle-surfers Evan Slater and John Walla. On the morning of January 19th, 2001 they found smooth glassy conditions and enormous, half-mile long waves breaking across about 1 mile of reef. Walla and Slater tried to paddle for one of these waves and both nearly drowned. Parsons was towed into the wave of the day. His very first ride at the Cortes Bank was estimated at 66 feet. It won him the first of two Guinness World Records and the Swell XXL Biggest Wave Award (now Billabong XXL) prize of $66,000 for the biggest wave surfed in 2000/2001.

On January 5, 2008, Mike Parsons, Brad Gerlach, Grant "Twiggy" Baker and Greg Long returned to the location in the midst of one of the worst storms ever recorded off the coast of California. Mike Parsons was photographed on a wave bigger than his award-winning ride of 2001, judged by the Billabong XXL judges as 70+ feet on the face—later determined to be at least 77 feet—and Parsons second Guinness World Record. He was photographed 15 seconds into the ride indicating a wave of over 80 feet at the start of his famous ride. Very dangerous conditions made it difficult to photograph.

Although remote, the Cortes Bank draws crowds when conditions are good. On a trip with the Billabong Odyssey in January 2004 Sean Collins counted 10 or 12 boats with about 40 surfers. On that note, if you're looking for solid swell this weekend, I bet the open ocean swells breaking over Cortes this weekend will be at least 10' if you're up for it...

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Just opened my first surf resort in the Caribbean. Besides the fire coral, mosquitoes, sharks, and pirates, I think it will be a success.

Keep Surfing,

Michael W. Glenn
Easy Like Sunday Morning
Been There Done That
Completed the Lemoore/Snowdonia/Myazaki/Typhoon Lagoon Slam