THE Surf Report

 

I Relish The Challenge.

SURF:

I'll be the first to admit- I don't mind storm surf. There's plenty of waves, the shape is peaky, and you have it to yourself. On the flip side, if you don't mind dirty water, blown out conditions, and blinding rain, then welcome to the club! Now that the storm has left the building, today saw small peaking SW swell and quickly dropping NW windswell for chest high sets. For Friday/Saturday, both swells will be on their way out and we're left with waist high combo swell and great conditions. 

Luckily for us, we've got a new small but fun WNW groundswell showing Sunday afternoon for chest high waves and shoulder high in SD. And the weather will continue to be great. So we got that going for us. And here's the tides, sun, and water temps for the next few days:

• Sunrise and sunset:
• 6:19 AM sunrise  
• 5:44 PM sunset  
• FYI- Daylight Savings is coming up quick- Sunday, March 13th...

• With the NW wind lately, water temps are holding in the high 50's. 

• And we've got a bit of a tide swing this weekend:
• 5.5' at sunrise
• -1 after lunch
• 3.5' at sunset

FORECAST:

The new WNW from Sunday peaks on Monday for more inconsistent chest high surf in N County SD and shoulder high waves in southern SD. 

For Tuesday, we have a small SW filling in for chest high surf towards the OC and then mainly small waist high NW/SW for the remainder of the week. 

Next weekend isn't looking to promising but we may see a small NW arriving Sunday and building through Tuesday for shoulder high surf. 

And take it with a grain of salt- because I don't trust the really really really long range models- but we could have our first solid SW swell of the season around the 12th of March for overhead waves. I won't believe it though until I see it. 

WEATHER:

Not the biggest storm yesterday but anything helps during our drought. Most spots along the coach received 1/4" to 3/4" of rain and the mountains received around 12" of snow. Wind gusts along the coast were 30-40 mph and peak winds in the mountains were 65-75 mph. Looks like we're due though for more warm sunny weather in the near term as high pressure is setting up shop for the weekend. Look for temps in the mid-40's in the mornings and mid-70's in the afternoons. Models hint at a cooling trend for the 2nd half of next week but no concrete evidence of rain yet. If anything changes between now and then, make sure to follow North County Surf on Twitter!

BEST BET:

Sunday with nice weather and a fun NW, Tuesday with a small but fun SW and nice weather, or maybe fun NW late next weekend. 

NEWS OF THE WEEK:

I'm sure you've heard by now of the multiple wave pools being built/proposed in the southern California desert. It's about time considering there's at least 10 around the world we can't visit unless you take a 3rd mortgage out on your house or sell your 1st born. So that begs the question, is there anything being built closer to home, like within 30 minutes of Orange County or downtown San Diego? If everything goes according to plan, there just might be. Here's the San Diego Union Tribune with the latest:

Ocean Kamp, a resort community to be built around an artificial surfing lagoon in the San Luis Rey River valley of Oceanside, CA is in our sights... but running a few months behind schedule.  Planners have asked for more work on the plan and as a result the construction start has been pushed back, developer Mike Grehl of N4FL Worldwide said in a recent presentation to the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce.

"We got a round of comments (from the city) that were somewhat unexpected," Grehl said. "We are definitely delayed, which is really unfortunate. ... It created a little roadblock for us, but we'll get through it. At the very end, when you are almost at the finish line, is when a lot of scrambling starts happening."

The developer had hoped to go to the Oceanside Planning Commission for approval in December 2021, but that "kind of slipped away," he said. The project would only go to the City Council if the Planning Commission's decision is appealed. The project has strong support from the city's business community, he said. The concept includes a high-tech artificial surfing lagoon as the centerpiece of a resort with up to 700 homes, 300 hotel rooms, and related offices, retail businesses and more on the 92-acre site of the former Valley Drive-In theater, just off state Route 76 at Foussat Road.

A Jan. 5 letter from the Oceanside Planning Department outlined dozens of conditions remaining to be met and things to be done before the project can be approved by the city. The letter includes a list from the Water Utilities Division with 60 conditions to be met, such as obtaining the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approval of utility lines along the river levee and the city Fire Department's approval of emergency vehicle access routes. It asks the developer to identify all the existing groundwater wells on the property, the locations of all the city water meters to be installed for the project, and other details of water, sewer and safety systems.

Every condition on the list is part of the normal review process, City Planner Sergio Madera said Thursday. "There was nothing new," Madera said. The city and the developer have been working together on the project for more than two years. "We're at the end of a pretty long review cycle," he said. "We're still dotting the i's and crossing the t's. We're excited about the project and hoping to get it to the decision makers."

Former Oceanside Councilmember Chuck Lowery, asked about the project Friday, said he was glad to see the city press the developer for details. "Now is the time," Lowery said. "You can't ask for it after it's built." He expects the wave pool concept to be "incredibly successful," he said. However, while it may be an economic boon to the city, he had reservations about how accessible it might be to the average Oceanside resident. "People don't realize it's probably going to cost them $500 every time they take their kids and maybe the neighbor's kids" to surf the wave pool, Lowery said. The few existing wave pools around the country are popular, but expensive. Surfing sessions generally cost $60 to $90 an hour per person, though pricing has not been set for Ocean Kamp.

Grehl said the company hopes to open the resort in the spring of 2024. He encouraged the Chamber and the local business community to get behind the project and push for its approval by the city. Opposition to the project so far has been minimal. A few residents have been critical of the expected traffic, the water consumption or the location next to the Oceanside airport. But so far there has been no official public hearing, which would happen at the city Planning Commission level, and most people have liked the idea at the developer's community information meetings.

The San Diego North Economic Development Council and the Oceanside Chamber issued a joint statement in support of the project. "Ocean Kamp will be an exciting destination that embodies the North County lifestyle and creates substantial economic, tourism and community benefits for the entire region," Development Council CEO W. Erik Bruvold said in the written statement. "The synergies with the region's active sports, craft brewing and innovation ... and the importance of new housing make Ocean Kamp an ideal addition to the Oceanside economy."

The developer, N4FL, estimates that the project will create more than 1,500 permanent jobs and generate $81.3 million in tax revenue over 10 years.  The hotel, located on a beach at the end of the 4.5-acre wave pool, will have 228 rooms in the main building, 40 separate "casitas," and a park-like arrangement of rental Airstream campers. In addition to surfing, the resort will have rock climbing, stand-up paddle-boarding, yoga, and mountain biking with connections to the nearby trails along the San Luis Rey River. 

The development will include up to 700 homes in a mixture of townhouses, rowhouses and small single-family homes, Grehl said. Plans call for 5 percent of the project's required affordable housing to be built on site, and the developer will pay in-lieu housing fees for an additional 5 percent.

Also included is a 25,000-square-foot community center to host weddings, conferences and industry events, and 20 acres of the site will be maintained as open space. "Ocean Kamp's vision will be a complementary extension of all the benefits of living and working in Oceanside," Chamber CEO Scott Ashton said in the joint statement. "It will also provide needed inclusive housing opportunities, spaces for local businesses to grow, as well as tourism and event facilities that will collectively be a long-term economic driver for Oceanside."

The four-screen drive-in theater that stood on the property for almost 50 years closed in 1999 and was demolished in 2016. The city approved an environmental impact report for a previous project called The Pavilion on the site in 2008 that would have been the largest shopping center in Oceanside with multiple big-box anchor tenants. But the shopping center idea lost its luster as online merchandizing continued to grow, and The Pavilion was never built.

Encinitas-based Zephyr Partners bought the property in 2018 and developed the Ocean Kamp plan based on the artificial wave concept. Then in 2020, Zephyr handed control of Ocean Kamp to N4FL Worldwide, also known as N4FL development, with offices in Encinitas and Rancho Santa Fe. Grehl, N4FL’s vice president, is a former senior vice president at Zephyr, where he helped develop the wave resort plan.

PIC OF THE WEEK:

Not a bad sandbar if you ask me. 

Keep Surfing, 
Michael W. Glenn
Champion
American Royalty
Swell Adviser