Big, stormy, winter surf crashing in Kachemak Bay, Alaska

It was big. It was messy. It was blowing on shore and breaking a half mile offshore. It was fun. The well known and easily accessed beaches here in Homer, Alaska don’t handle a big stormy swell like today’s very well. The set waves were breaking way offshore and the current and foam piles were vicious inside. We were pretty much limited to sitting outside trying to pick off one of those mobbing set waves that would crank up out there.  How big was it? I’m not really sure, but the set waves seemed like they were pushing ten feet on the face. Though they never had a chance to break top to bottom because of the gradually inclining beach that would ware them down before they jacked up and crushed it inside on the bar.

Maybe some of the other guys can tell us how big they were?

Big enough to be exciting just to sit out there amongst them, I can tell you that much. Homer might get waves this big a few times a winter.  Getting outside was a challenge. Fortunately I was out with a 6’2″ little wafer and could duck-dive my way out relatively easy. Some poor guys with bigger boards were never actually able to get outside the aggressive shore break.

Air temps in the mid 20′s F, a little bit of blowing snow and a gorgeous sunset.  Thanks to Amanda for sticking it out with my camera to shoot some photos of the mayhem.  You think surfing in this climate is cold, try standing on the beach taking photos!

Jake Bell runs out for a stormy Alaskan surf session

Ben Reynolds walks back up stream.

The waiting room. Alaskan surfers looking for a break in the pounding shore break.

Mike McCune walking back upstream at sunset.

Gart Curtis runs towards some gnarly winter storm surf in Alaska.

BARREN ISLANDS AND KAMISHAK BAY WATERS
400 PM AKST SAT NOV 29 2008

...STORM WARNING THROUGH SUNDAY...
...HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY WARNING THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT...
.TONIGHT...W WIND 50 KT. SEAS 16 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.
.SUN...NW WIND 50 KT. SEAS 16 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.
.SUN NIGHT...NW WIND 40 KT DIMINISHING TO 25 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. SEAS
14 FT. HEAVY FREEZING SPRAY.

We had some fun storm surf in Homer, Alaska today. Air temps were around 25F and it was blowing roughly 25mph onshore. That was all just fine and I was having a great surf until around 4pm when we started losing daylight fast the wind picked up even more and little icy precipitation started falling. The problem was the flying ice crystals were getting blown into our eyes making it painful to look offshore. Let me just say it wasn’t a good day to not be paying close attention to where you were at in the lineup.

According to the forecast something juicy is brewing up for tomorrow. Hopefully we won’t have so much wind locally.

I shot a bunch of photos today, but haven’t edited (or even downloaded) them yet. Stay tuned. The shot above is from January 2007 when the conditions were much like today.

NWS Marine Weather can be seen here