What’s the difference between surfing in the tropics
and surfing at least where I am in Southern California?
Having grown up in So. Cal. and surfing around So. Cal. from 1962 ‘til now I pretty much
know what the prevailing conditions are like for surf and pretty much surfed in
every condition. As well know what conditions I prefer, always looking for days
with surf that also have my preferred conditions. Also living on the Island of Kauai for just shy of 10 years I’ve got a
decent sample size of tropical conditions in surfing experience as well.
The
easiest condition to note would be water temperature. Here in Ventura Ca. the warmest temps sometimes
reach 70 to 72…. Coldest? Mid to upper 50’s. Kauai water coldest may be low 70’s but
will be low 80’s quite a bit of the time. I still remember the first time me
and a friend, also from Ventura, jumped in the water at a Oahu south shore spot one August morning.
We both laughed at how warm the water was compared to what we would usually get
into at home.
Prevailing condition are made or broken with wind. I’m
sure it’s been motioned in other posts here that knowing what the local wind
condition are can make for a fun surf or not fun at all surf. For Hawaii the prevailing winds are trades, east
winds. Where as in Ventura east winds are fine for some of the
spots but not the points. Ventura point, Pitas point and Rincon can
get pretty junk with east winds.
On Kauai the trades are good for most spots and not for others. The
nice thing about Kauai
is there are spots you won’t surf in the trades, but, if the trades die down,
or winds turn light variable those spots can be quite good. May not happen too
often but it does happen.
I remember one day while working at Hawaiian Blades
there was a day when the winds went dead calm. That after noon the call was going to the east side…
maybe a 15 minuet drive from the shop to surf where you hardly ever get a
chance for. Turn off the highway go down a dirt road to the beach. At the
beach, the road turns and runs along the beach that you can’t see from the
highway. What you do see though for a good distance is only nice peaks of clean
clear water surf and very few if any other surfers.
Another memory is of a spot on the south side that
will hold size very well with south swells. I only got to surf it a couple
times when the trades had backed off. I was at the park there for a small get
together with family one time when again wind conditions were in the dead calm
category. There was a decent sized south swell in the water and a few guys were
out on the reef getting towed into some pretty good ones. It wasn’t like
monster winter surf but I’m sure being towed in was easier than paddling in.
Then maybe the guys were getting prepared for winter and the wave there, and
conditions were good for that.
Anyway, was thinking about this because I wasn’t
paying attention to the local conditions yesterday so missed this morning’s
surf. In Hawaii the prevailing condition are almost always good So you don’t
have to pay attention so much.
The water temps
are always better too.
D.R 
