THE Surf Report

 

Easy Cheesy Lemon Squeezy

SURF:

Been on cruise control this past week. Nothing out of the ordinary with some showers/wind early on, then clean offshore dropping NW swell the past few days. For the upcoming weekend, we'll have some small but fun surf- so keep those step ups in the rafters and the groveler handy. 

On Friday into Saturday, look for an uptick in NW groundswell, clean conditions, and a touch of small S swell. The result? Waist high surf with chest high sets at best combo spots. Sunday looks to be a touch smaller and maybe more wind bump from a weak low pressure system. And here are tides, sunrise/sunset, and water temps for the next few days:

• Sunrise and sunset:
•  6:28 AM sunrise (6 am paddle out?)
•  5:38 PM sunset (6 pm paddle in?)

• Water temps are a chilly 56 degrees; which is nothing- Oregon is 46 today...

• And tides are back to fairly large swings again:
• about 6.5' at 8am
• drops like a rock to -1.5' mid-afternoon
• and back up to 2' at sunset

FORECAST:

Not much to start the week as we just have leftover NW groundswell for waist high surf. Models show another cold front headed our way from British Columbia which will kick up the NW wind/groundswell Wednesday. 

Forecast charts show the storm being right offshore from us and we could have double overhead (messy) surf mid-week. The surf will drop by Friday but we should have plenty of head high+ surf. Next weekend could be back to chest high sets.

WEATHER:

Nice (chilly) weather is on tap for the weekend before our attention turns to the next storm for Wednesday. It's another storm coming from British Columbia- so expect showers and windy conditions again. Here's a quick summary of the week ahead:

• Sunny Friday and temps in the high 60's and mid-40's at night. Look for offshore winds again.
• Sunny again Saturday, less wind, and temps near the mid-60's (low 40's at night)
• A little more clouds Sunday and mild temps
• Monday/Tuesday we're back to sun and temps in the low 60's (low 40's at night).
• Showers/wind Wednesday? And temps only in the mid-50's!
• Nice again the 2nd half of next week.

If anything changes between now and then, make sure to follow North County Surf on Twitter!

BEST BET:

Tomorrow with small combo surf and offshore winds. Or if you like a challenge- solid bumpy windswell and close to double overhead...

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

Our countdown of top 5 ‘sketchiest’ surf spots in California is almost complete. Coming in at #2 this week requires a loooooooong paddle. Which is why no one does it- a 5 hour boat ride is the only viable option. So where is it? You guessed it- our very own Cortes Bank- over 100 miles off of San Diego. 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 (just under 50 miles to the SW).

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 (seriously). 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 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 (read the ridiculous story here). 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 of Surfline fame counted about a dozen boats with around 40 surfers. The new Trestles! On that note, if you're looking for solid swell this weekend, I bet the open ocean swells breaking over Cortes will be at least 10' if you're up for it...

BEST OF THE BLOG:

Attention fellow surfers: Just a reminder that if you're looking to expand your network, support your community, and talk a little surf while you're at it, then the North County Board Meeting is for you! And if you haven't heard, we have a special event next week that you won't want to miss. From the wave wizards that brought you Waco Surf, Shizunami Surf Stadium, and now Brazil's Boa Vista Village surf pool, you are cordially invited to C3 Bank in downtown Encinitas at 5:30 PM on Thursday, February 23rd to hear what American Wave Machines has next up their sleeve. Sponsored by Patriot Risk Insurance Services, join us to learn about the latest wave pool technology, network, and enjoy some food and drink with the group. For more information on the North County Board Meeting, check out our website or reach out to northcountyboardmeeting@gmail.com. Thanks for the support and we'll see you on the 23rd! 

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Looks kind of peaceful from up here. But peaceful Cortes Bank is not; waves over 100' are possible, sunken ships lurk beneath, and if you're afraid of deep water- it plunges over 5,000' (i.e. a mile) to the depths off the Pacific. If this is the 2nd 'sketchiest' wave in California, what the heck is #1 next week?!...

Keep Surfing, 
Michael W. Glenn
Bold
Traveling In A Fried-out Kombi
1st Surfer To 'Double Paddle' Cortes (Paddle From San Diego & Paddle In To A Wave)