Surfing in Alaska we get to see a lot of unusual things. These waves in Anchor Point a few days ago were cool, really cool, almost frozen, like a salt slurpee. I was mesmerized, in a desperate effort to try and capture this sight, despite the flat light, I shot some video and photos:

Alaskan slush barrel

The slush layer was about 100ft wide, see the dark water outside.

The set waves were about thigh high.

Heavy slush with ice chunks
We thought about trying to surf these, but the size just didn’t look like it was enough to overcome the drag of moving through all that slush and we were actually having a good time just watching! Besides just being alien like, one fascinating thing about a slush layer is that even a 20mph onshore wind can’t disturb the waves underneath. I’m really looking forward to finding these conditions with a head high swell. Can’t wait to see someone surfing down a slush face or getting barreled in a slurpee, probably call that getting slurped I guess.
so cool! thanks for sharing. glad you’ve been posting more. i like it.
[…] of slush floating on the surface took them to a notch above glassy actually. Until you’ve seen surf break in slush it is hard to imagine. The slush gives the water some kind of surface tension that keeps it […]