Ever been reading the surf report and seen the swell being referred to as a windswell or a groundswell and not really known what that meant?  Me too.  I looked it up.
Think of local, surface action for windswells.  Windswells are swells created by regional winds on the relative surface of the ocean.  (Think globally though, [...]

After posting about pearling, we had a few questions about going over the falls.  Going over the falls, is kind of the opposite of pearling.  Rather than diggin the nose into the base of the wave, going over the falls involves getting caught in the cycle of the wave and actually rolling with the curl [...]

Pearling is when the nose of the surfboard digs into the water usually resulting in getting up-ended and flipped into the spin cycle.  This can happen while surfing, but tends to be most common with novice surfers while paddling for a wave.  If you find your are pearling while paddling for a wave, the quickest [...]

I got up for some swell this am.  Things were looking good in the forecast.  But when I got to Venice it was Close Out Central.  2 – 4 ft waves dumping on the beach, churning up all kinds of sand.  It was rather unpleasant out there.  There were some dudes looking for something to [...]

What is Stinkbutt?
This may go by other names in different areas, but I’ve always known it as stinkbutt. (Let me know if you’ve heard of different terms for this.)
Stinkbutt is when a surfer is riding down a wave with their buttocks protruding out. Essentially it looks like you are cutting the cheese or poopin’ yourself [...]

What is sectiony?
In a perfect world all waves would peel beautifully from one end of the wave to the other in one smooth, continuous motion – one curl per wave.  But as we all know, this is not an ideal world and waves aren’t always perfect.  When a swell builds into a wave and that [...]

What is a shadowed swell?
Unbeknownst to a lot of Souther California surfers, many of the great swells we get originate near Alaska and Antarctica.  They don’t necesarily come from the poles per se, but storms often churn at the higher latitudes and then kindly send ripples our way.  Of course, the Earth is not smooth [...]