As summer gets closer — and the water warms up — a lot more of you will be heading out to grab some waves. I am not saying that some of you are fair-weather lightweights, or maybe I am, but the fact is a lot more of you surf in the warmer months than the colder ones.
Anyway, all that aside, I thought I would do a little bit on the better surf spots available to you here in beautiful Orange County.
I am going to break this up into two categories, winter breaks and summer breaks. I am also going to point out the better spots for beginner to intermediate and for intermediate to advanced. This way, I gotcha all covered.
Winter spots
I am leading with this as it is pretty much still winter as far as swell direction goes. This time of year, the swells come from the west and northwest.
Beginner to intermediate: Due to the fact that most of the south county beaches get blocked off by Catalina Island at this time of year, you will find that most of the best areas are in the northern end of the county.
Bolsa Chica is probably your best bet for learners with all of the Huntington Cliffs area great for the more intermediates. Blackies in Newport Beach is also a great intermediate spot, although I tend to not promote going there so much as it is really crowded and has a ton of long-time locals who are out there trying to grab what they can and probably don’t need any more people in the water than are already there.
Intermediate to advanced: For the most consistent waves with the most power I would have to recommend the area closer to the Huntington Beach Pier. This is sort of the heart of one of the most aggressive surfing communities on the planet and where “the good guys” hang out. Also good in winter, although not as consistent due to Catalina, are the two spots in the Trestles area just south of San Clemente called Uppers and Church. The direction of the swells hits these two breaks perfectly in winter months.
Summer spots
During the summer months we almost exclusively get swells from the south, and sometimes extreme south. This is when all the points and reefs in the south end of the county come alive.
Beginner to intermediate: There are two excellent spots for this group — Doheny State Beach in Dana Point and San Onofre Surf Beach south of San Clemente. These are two of the best spots in the world to learn how to surf and perfect it. Bolsa Chica also is good in the summer if you need to stay in the northern county.
Intermediate to advanced: One of the best spots on the West Coast is Lower Trestles. This is where you will find the best surfers on more days than not. Also Salt Creek just north of Dana Point goes off on south swells. The pier in Huntington Beach ditto — it’s good on any direction so it really has no bad season. On an extreme south swell the area known as Newport Point (also called Newport Pipeline), which is just south of the pier in Newport Beach, is excellent. But that place is for experts only — don’t even think about it if you are not really good. You can get hurt at that place.
Speaking of getting hurt, there is also the Wedge. Best for bodysurfing in my opinion.
OK, that’s a brief user’s guide to O.C. surf breaks. There are other spots that are good that I did not mention, for one reason or another, in this quick look. Most of those are more “local” orientated or just don’t break often enough to point out.
I hope this helps save you some drive time and gas as you set out to ride, ride, ride the wild surf.
Ask the expert
Q. I have noticed that there are not many twin-fin SUPs available, nor quads. Why is this, when that fin configuration is so popular in surfboards?
Steven Jennings
Hermosa Beach
A. Yes, this is true. There are some SUPs made with twin and quad set-ups but they are all of the very short variety, mostly used by very good and younger SUP surfers.
The main reason you don’t see that kind of fin set-up on slightly bigger SUPs is because they are so wide already that by keeping the tail wide enough to use that kind of set-up, and fit with the overall outline of the shape, it makes the board so wide in the tail that it tracks out just a bit too much and is harder to turn instead of easier.
That fin set-up works much better on shorter surfboards, like 8-foot and under. On SUPs over about 8 feet in length, the tri-fin set-up seems to be the best way to go, at least as far as I have discovered so far in designing SUPs made for surfing.