The Morning Report
Get the news and information you need to take on the day.
Winter is over. It ended on Monday March 12th when Trestles started firing and the best surfers from the OC and San Diego congregated on our county’s best wave field for some prime southern hemisphere waves. According to Surfline, the Bloomberg of the surfing world:
It’s easy to forget the long, cold lonely (flat) winter when a little early season south swell fills into wave-starved Orange County beaches … by Thursday morning, surfers had all but forgotten SoCal’s miserable winter. The peak was packed the whole time, of course, with all sorts: hot groms, local pros, random Aussies, stray Brazilians, and, of course, the morning regulars.
In fact I can’t even remember the last time we had a decent clean northwest swell. So last week, when surf forecasting sites like Surfline and Wetsand started hyping that another Southern Hemisphere (southern swell ) was predicted for this week, you can only imagine how excited everyone became.
The swell started hitting Imperial Beach on Sunday with the odd southern slanted sets. We had some nice shaped lefts over the past two days. Nothing special, unless of course, you wanted to wade into the crowds at the wave-magnet of Trestles.
It was nice to enjoy the changeup that south swells bring. The waves always seem snappier, thinner and seem to crackle more than the thicker and energy filled northwest swells that fill in winter breaks. At my home break of Imperial Beach, south swells create some amazingly epic days — with freight train lefts, deep tubes and the most crowded conditions of the year. 
And if you’re lucky, like I was Wednesday, you can catch an hour of fun 3-4′ peaks on the north side of the pier (a spot I have surfed for 30 years) with minimal crowd, and enough push to allow me to make a few turns and pretend that I’m still in my surfing prime, rather than a 40-something dad riding a big guy twinnie.
So, at least for a few days, summer is here. That is, until the north swell predicted for Saturday hits. And then it’s winter all over again. With a vengeance.