Its nice to be back at the hotel in Jaco after a couple weeks of freezing my **** off in Montana. Too cold to snow! Meanwhile the east coast got two feet of snow.
And people were surfing in lake Michigan.
That's right. If you saw that part of step into liquid where they have the fat old guys surfing tiny shorebreak in Chicago, that was less than half the story. A friend of mine surfs with those guys and saw what was coming and said "Dont go out - they are going to make you look like beginners for a segment of the movie that will basically say - even fat old guys with no waves can surf." They went anyway, because they are truly hardcore. They wanted to be in the movie for fun. And they go to be hardcore for fun, not to get in a movie, so they didnt care.
Those crazy *****s surf stand up barrels, chasing around the vast lake Michigan shoreline in the dead of winter to catch wind driven waves in the icy waters. At the end of the session, they have ice on their wetsuit hoods.
Me, I will take warm water surfing in Costa Rica any day. I guess I'd much rather be warm than hard core.
here is a link to a photo of lake Michigan barreling
http://photos.surfline.com/view_image.php?pid=52871
see you in the water, or at the nicest hotel in Jaco!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Surf forecasting - Tulin south end of Hermosa
About 15 minutes from the hotels in Jaco, at the very south end of the road that runs along Hermosa beach, lies a magical place called Tulin. This beach break area is named for the Tulin river mouth, 600 meters south. Dont go in the water much south of the end of the road there unless you are prepared for large crocodiles.
The road ends at the ranger station for the Tulin Wildlife Refuge. From November to January you will find them protecting wire baskets of buried turtle eggs arranged in careful grids. When its time to hatch, latex-gloved volunteers sheperd the tiny (2 inch) turtles to the sea. This morning I saw a bunch in a bucket of sand getting ready to go out and crawling blindly all over each other and I saw one tiny little tortugita swimming around in the shore break.
But I digress. The point of this post is to let those seeking waves know - Tulin can produce waves when nothing else but Bejuco is working. In brief - if it is a small south swell and its dead elsewhere, head to Tulin for small peaky waves that even a bold beginner could enjoy breaking in shoulder deep water.
With wavewatch swell heights of 1.5-.2.5 feet out of the south and surfline forecasts of 1 to 3 feet wave heights, most of Hermosa and all of Jaco will be breaking very small and close to the shore. Maybe on a lower tide you could find something.
Tulin this morning had the largest waves in the area, but they were tiny for Tulin, which usually produces larger wave heights than other areas of Hermosa. Local Hermosa surfers would say the waves were waist high maybe. An northeastern surfer I was with said maybe one foot overhead. Depends on how you look at it. Anyway, fun waves for sure. If we had hit dead low they might have been throwing a couple crouching barrells. As it was, one hour after low tide, they were still fairly steep and you could see a little torso sized opening where the lip was pitching over. By an hour before the high tide they were getting mushy anywhere off the peak.
The beach in Tulin is long and flat rather than steep like north Hermosa beach. Waves from the larger days rearrange the sand in the shallow mid tide water into shifting peaks at the optimum low tide small wave breaking range, so on small days the waves here can be extremely peaky, so much so that you have to stall to stay in the wave or just pull out early and go back for another.
for more information on surfing and the various breaks in Hermosa beach -
check out this surf information from the finest of Jaco Hotels:
http://www.docelunas.com/surfing.html
The road ends at the ranger station for the Tulin Wildlife Refuge. From November to January you will find them protecting wire baskets of buried turtle eggs arranged in careful grids. When its time to hatch, latex-gloved volunteers sheperd the tiny (2 inch) turtles to the sea. This morning I saw a bunch in a bucket of sand getting ready to go out and crawling blindly all over each other and I saw one tiny little tortugita swimming around in the shore break.
But I digress. The point of this post is to let those seeking waves know - Tulin can produce waves when nothing else but Bejuco is working. In brief - if it is a small south swell and its dead elsewhere, head to Tulin for small peaky waves that even a bold beginner could enjoy breaking in shoulder deep water.
With wavewatch swell heights of 1.5-.2.5 feet out of the south and surfline forecasts of 1 to 3 feet wave heights, most of Hermosa and all of Jaco will be breaking very small and close to the shore. Maybe on a lower tide you could find something.
Tulin this morning had the largest waves in the area, but they were tiny for Tulin, which usually produces larger wave heights than other areas of Hermosa. Local Hermosa surfers would say the waves were waist high maybe. An northeastern surfer I was with said maybe one foot overhead. Depends on how you look at it. Anyway, fun waves for sure. If we had hit dead low they might have been throwing a couple crouching barrells. As it was, one hour after low tide, they were still fairly steep and you could see a little torso sized opening where the lip was pitching over. By an hour before the high tide they were getting mushy anywhere off the peak.
The beach in Tulin is long and flat rather than steep like north Hermosa beach. Waves from the larger days rearrange the sand in the shallow mid tide water into shifting peaks at the optimum low tide small wave breaking range, so on small days the waves here can be extremely peaky, so much so that you have to stall to stay in the wave or just pull out early and go back for another.
for more information on surfing and the various breaks in Hermosa beach -
check out this surf information from the finest of Jaco Hotels:
http://www.docelunas.com/surfing.html
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Surf In Jaco - Forecasting
Observations on surf forecasting from our hotel in Jaco Costa Rica -
Today Surfline predicted wave faces of 3 to 4 feet for the central pacific. Yesterday wave faces were predicted at 2 to 4 feet. Today was considerably smaller than yesterday in South Jaco.
Is there any value in the surfline forecast? Yes, in my experience they can be quite helpful, but you can't just take them at face value. First of all, the bathymetry (bottom contour shape) of the beaches and ocean beyond, the shape of the coast, the land shadow of the Nicoya for some swell directions, all affect how open ocean swell manifests on different beaches.
For instance, Bejuco is on a wide open stretch of coastline with nothing to interfere with the waves banging right up onto the sandbars. The swell comes unimpeded through very deep water and then hits a gradual slope leading to the sandbars which create big peaky waves.
South Jaco beach is shaded by Punta Guapinol which blocks swell out of the south (although it can wrap around which cuts it size) and has shallower ocean in front of it and can be in the land shadow of the Nicoya for some swells.
Consequently, surf heights in south Jaco will typically be 1/3 or so of surf heights in Bejuco although both are covered on the central pacific forecast and receive the same swell.
There is a page on surfline that gives beach specific forecasts but it underestimates the differences in my experience. It gives you a baseline idea of which beaches are going to show bigger waves though.
But I digress.. back to the matter at hand. How come surfline said it would be bigger and it was smaller? Well, surfline could be just plain wrong. I have definitely seen hat happen sometimes. And it was a pretty small difference we were looking at, so that could be the explanation.
But it turns out it was actually a little bigger today than yesterday in Hermosa. Hermosa is only a few minutes south of Jaco and the lovely hotel DoceLunas. Did it get a different swell? Well, yes and no.
If you look at the forecast, you can see there is a detailed forecast tab. This breaks down the individual swells that contribute to the wave height. For today, you can see that the dominant swell was only a little west of due south. Coming almost straight out of the south, it did not make it past the point at the south end of Jaco. I didnt make it up there this morning, but its a pretty sure bet that the waves were considerably bigger in north Jaco.
In general, faces in the north end of Jaco beach will be 10% to 30% taller than in the south, unless the swell is coming from true southwest or more westerly.
For detailed information about wave forecasting for Hermosa Beach and the different breaks on that beautiful three mile stretch of paradise
check out the surf page on our website www.docelunas.com you can find it under activities.
Today Surfline predicted wave faces of 3 to 4 feet for the central pacific. Yesterday wave faces were predicted at 2 to 4 feet. Today was considerably smaller than yesterday in South Jaco.
Is there any value in the surfline forecast? Yes, in my experience they can be quite helpful, but you can't just take them at face value. First of all, the bathymetry (bottom contour shape) of the beaches and ocean beyond, the shape of the coast, the land shadow of the Nicoya for some swell directions, all affect how open ocean swell manifests on different beaches.
For instance, Bejuco is on a wide open stretch of coastline with nothing to interfere with the waves banging right up onto the sandbars. The swell comes unimpeded through very deep water and then hits a gradual slope leading to the sandbars which create big peaky waves.
South Jaco beach is shaded by Punta Guapinol which blocks swell out of the south (although it can wrap around which cuts it size) and has shallower ocean in front of it and can be in the land shadow of the Nicoya for some swells.
Consequently, surf heights in south Jaco will typically be 1/3 or so of surf heights in Bejuco although both are covered on the central pacific forecast and receive the same swell.
There is a page on surfline that gives beach specific forecasts but it underestimates the differences in my experience. It gives you a baseline idea of which beaches are going to show bigger waves though.
But I digress.. back to the matter at hand. How come surfline said it would be bigger and it was smaller? Well, surfline could be just plain wrong. I have definitely seen hat happen sometimes. And it was a pretty small difference we were looking at, so that could be the explanation.
But it turns out it was actually a little bigger today than yesterday in Hermosa. Hermosa is only a few minutes south of Jaco and the lovely hotel DoceLunas. Did it get a different swell? Well, yes and no.
If you look at the forecast, you can see there is a detailed forecast tab. This breaks down the individual swells that contribute to the wave height. For today, you can see that the dominant swell was only a little west of due south. Coming almost straight out of the south, it did not make it past the point at the south end of Jaco. I didnt make it up there this morning, but its a pretty sure bet that the waves were considerably bigger in north Jaco.
In general, faces in the north end of Jaco beach will be 10% to 30% taller than in the south, unless the swell is coming from true southwest or more westerly.
For detailed information about wave forecasting for Hermosa Beach and the different breaks on that beautiful three mile stretch of paradise
check out the surf page on our website www.docelunas.com you can find it under activities.
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