Surf: General: With only about 50 miles of swell exposure and shallow sand flats hampering swell production — Alabama beachbreaks are abominably fickle and require a significant amount of local S-SE windswell or, more ideally, a strong tropical system to produce rideable waves. Dauphin Island Pier is probably the most reliable spot along Dauphin Island, particularly during a properly directed hurricane swell with N-NW winds, where an assortment of lefts and rights break softly over a sand bottom. Tides: If you catch a swell in Alabama, surf it into the ground. Tide be damned. Size: Knee-high to overhead. Wind: N Swell: SE, S, SW Bottom: Sand. Paddling: If you can swim, you can surf here. Actually, you probably don’t even need to be able to swim. Spot Rating: Rarely breaks. Small, weak, disorganized and short-lived when it does. Access: Open to the public year-round with a nominal environmental fee. Crowds: Crowd Factor: No rhyme, no reason, and probably no surfers. Local Vibe: Alabamians are perhaps the friendliest surfers in the country. Both of them. Environment: Silt from the Mississippi and a history of oil spills is the reality in the Gulf of Mexico. Historically failed to meet water quality standards, less than 60% of the time. Hazards: Sharks, jellyfish, pollution. Season: September-March