As part of surfing for sports, inspired by Logan’s running journal, Logan and I decided to make a surf journal of each session we had over the week. We surfed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week because Logan’s leaving to Mammoth. We had this idea on Tuesday so that’s our first day. To explain the data at the top of each day: The Santa Barbara East Bouy (closest buoy to Ventura) collects information 24/7 about conditions at sea. The first piece of info is wave height, then the period in seconds, then the strongest swell direction, then tide on the beach (not collected from buoy), then wind speed and direction. Onshore means the wind is blowing from out at sea onto the beach, this is generally considered bad and creates “mushy waves” as opposed to off-shore winds which, generally speaking, create barreling waves, but more realistically steeper and better-formed waves. So here are the first two journals for this week.
Surf journal
3/7/234.7ft @ 6s, 277 W, 1.9ft rising, 5mph onshore
Logan:
3 really good waves, learning how to stomp on the back of the middy and turn it. Walk to nose to gain speed. Lul period was challenging and messed up the session a little mentally.
Emanuel:
One really good wave plus some other shorter ones. The good session got better in the end as the tide rose and the wind died down. Felt really good turning and working on my Steez
3/8/234.3ft @ 10s, 270 W, 20mph cross-shore
Emanuel: Ben, Kenya, Logan and I surfed all on longboards. Good session despite very small waves and high wind. Ben lost the fin to his board so I surfed finless which was more fun than I thought it would be. It required a lot more strength and body control which actually felt like a good way to train in those aspects of surfing. Waves were supposed to get bigger as the session went on but honestly, conditions got worse. Maybe because we were deeper in the bay in a less exposed area to swell.
OVS Journalism Blog 