When it rains it...
SURF:
I was going to finish by saying 'it pours', but it's never going to rain again (more on that below) so scratch that.
As far as the surf goes though, we've had good surf and plenty more coming. Sure is better than the flat spell we had in November. For Friday, the current WNW groundswell winds down to the waist to chest high range but NW windswell fills in behind it for similar sized surf.
On Saturday the NW windswell continues and we get a small late season SW swell for waist high+ surf with chest high sets towards the OC. Luckily for us in North County SD, the combo swells will keep us in mostly chest high surf through Sunday morning and peaky (in comparison to the walled WNW we had the past few days). And here's the tides, sun, and water info:
- Sunrise and sunset:
- 6:42 AM sunrise
- 4:43 PM sunset
- Water temps are holding around 60. Get it while you can before it drops to the mid 50's by February!
- And tides are crazy this weekend- about an 8' swing in 6.5 hours. Tides will drop about 1.25' an hour in the AM!
- 7' at sunrise
- -1' after lunch
- back up to 4' at sunset
FORECAST:
When it rains, it pours (surf that is). Time to plug in the Emergency Boardriding System again.
Monday afternoon sees a new NW filling in for overhead sets by the afternoon and that lasts into Tuesday morning.
We then get another shot of surf, this time head high NW on Thursday. After that, the north Pacific takes a breather but we still should have some waist high+ NW the beginning of Xmas week.
Then it looks like most of us have been good this year because the South Pacific is forecasted to come alive and we could see a good (head high) SW swell by Christmas Eve into Christmas?! I sure know I've been good; keep up your end of the bargain people! Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.
BEST BET:
Little combo swell this weekend or solid NW Monday/Tuesday or good SW Xmas?...
WEATHER:
When it rains... nevermind. Forecast charts a few days ago hinted that the storm window may be opening up towards Christmas week but have since backed off that prediction. For the time being, we have a weak cold front moving by to the north tonight which will give us a little more wind tomorrow than we'd like. Saturday is calmer and we're back to a weak Santa Ana on Sunday. We also see that on Tuesday. The 2nd half of next week looks mild.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
Next time you're surfing, wouldn't it be great to see sharks BEFORE they mistakenly take a bite? That's the goal of the SharkEye project; one day producing automated “shark reports” for beachgoers to help them gauge levels of risk. Here's what the NY Times reported earlier this week:
Once rare off Southern California beaches, great white sharks are beginning to show up more often. The newcomers are mostly juvenile sharks, which prefer the warm waters closer to shore. That means many beachgoers who are now spotting sharks have never seen the predators before. “When these little fins started to pop up, everyone was scrambling to figure out what was going on,” said Douglas J. McCauley, a marine science professor and the director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
A new project using artificial intelligence called SharkEye may help keep track of these fearsome fish. The technology is being developed by Dr. McCauley’s lab (which works with A.I. researchers at Salesforce, the company led by his lab’s sponsor, Marc Benioff) and computer scientists at San Diego State University to monitor more of the oceanfront while learning about shark migrations. SharkEye has been tested over the past two summers at Padaro Beach in Santa Barbara County, a popular area for surf camps that also happens to be a nursery for juvenile white sharks. Shark spotting there and in other places, when it occurs at all, is usually done by tracking tagged animals online, or by having someone stand on a paddle board in the water to keep an eye out.
A new project using artificial intelligence called SharkEye may help keep track of these fearsome fish. The technology is being developed by Dr. McCauley’s lab (which works with A.I. researchers at Salesforce, the company led by his lab’s sponsor, Marc Benioff) and computer scientists at San Diego State University to monitor more of the oceanfront while learning about shark migrations. SharkEye has been tested over the past two summers at Padaro Beach in Santa Barbara County, a popular area for surf camps that also happens to be a nursery for juvenile white sharks. Shark spotting there and in other places, when it occurs at all, is usually done by tracking tagged animals online, or by having someone stand on a paddle board in the water to keep an eye out.
With SharkEye, a pilot launches a drone that travels along a preprogrammed path in the sky, followed by a second meandering route to scan the water below. The drone stays about 120 feet up, allowing the sweeps to quickly cover a large area of the ocean. That height is also high enough to avoid bothering marine life. The pilot monitors a video feed in real time, noting any sharks, and then sends a text to the 36 people who have signed up to get alerts — a group that includes lifeguards, surf camp instructors and beachside homeowners. Dr. McCauley said the lab was working on different types of alerts so people would have information before venturing into the water. These might come through social media channels or even a “shark report” modeled off surf reports.
The drone footage also goes into a computer model that the team trained to recognize great white sharks. Combining that with other data, such as information on ocean temperature and other marine life migrations, researchers hope to use the power of artificial intelligence to develop predictions for when and where sharks will show up that could lead to ways to share the ocean as safely as possible.
Researchers are turning to A.I. to learn more about some marine animals, which, because they live under the vast oceans, have been harder to study than most land creatures. Using hydrophones and A.I., Google built tools to automatically detect humpback whales and orcas by their sounds. Flukebook is a project that tracks individual dolphins and whales by using artificial intelligence to identify them by unique features on their tails and fins, much like facial recognition technology. Even without A.I., drones have allowed groups like Pelagios Kakunjá, a Mexican conservation organization, to study sharks more closely.
The increase in great white sharks off California is partially a result of climate change, which is pushing the animals, especially the juveniles, north from their usual haunts further south along California’s coast down into Baja California. Successful conservation efforts like the Marine Mammal Protection Act have helped some of the sharks’ favorite foods — seals and sea lions — rebound. And a ban on near-shore gillnets has reduced the number of sharks accidentally caught by commercial fishermen.
Even with the growing shark population, shark attacks are rare off the West Coast, with only 118, including six fatalities, since 2000, according to the nonprofit Shark Research Committee. One of those attacks was at Padaro Beach over the summer, when the SharkEye team wasn’t flying a drone because of the coronavirus shutdown. A shark is believed to have bitten a woman swimming offshore, although her injuries were minor. And eight days later, a shark killed a surfer a few hours north in Santa Cruz — the first fatal shark attack in California since 2012.
There is no evidence that the rate of shark attacks is increasing even as more people use the beach, according to Chris Lowe, a professor in marine biology and the director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. The chances of being bitten are still extremely low, but giving people more insight into the number of sharks in the area may help beachgoers make informed decisions about what they are willing to risk. “The reality is, sharks aren’t going to change their behavior,” Dr. Lowe said. “This data is more valuable in changing people’s behavior.”
Chris Keet, the owner of Surf Happens, a local surf store that offers summer camps and private lessons on Padaro Beach, is already altering his business based on the SharkEye data. After SharkEye clocked nine sightings in one day in July, Mr. Keet decided to cancel a two-decade-old summer tradition in which campers dive for sand dollars and swim out to a buoy. “Even though the sharks aren’t aggressive,” Mr. Keet said, “it just takes one.”
Because the SharkEye drone is not in use the whole time camp is in session, Mr. Keet still relies on people on paddle boards as lookouts, including himself. After growing up nearby and never seeing a shark, he now almost always spots a shadow or a fin cutting through the water when he’s on duty. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “But it’s nerve-racking.”
Because the SharkEye drone is not in use the whole time camp is in session, Mr. Keet still relies on people on paddle boards as lookouts, including himself. After growing up nearby and never seeing a shark, he now almost always spots a shadow or a fin cutting through the water when he’s on duty. “They’re beautiful,” he said. “But it’s nerve-racking.”
PIC OF THE WEEK:
I've had various Pics of the Week similar to this one over the years; an empty line up with a surfer casually looking at it. And I say the same thing every time: "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! GET OUT THERE!"
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Cool
Prognosticator. Or Am I A Procrastinator? All I Know Is That I'm Going To Be Lazy Tomorrow
Would Have Surfed Mav's This Week But My Gun Was At Ding Repair
