Surf Forecast  Ocean Beach

Ocean Beach surfspot characteristics

More about Ocean Beach surfspot

Three miles of some of the best and heaviest beachbreak on the planet, similar to Mexico’s Puerto Escondido. Simply called “The Beach” by locals, it picks up all swells and can hold virtually any size — as it gets bigger, it just breaks further out and becomes nearly impossible to paddle through. A dropping tide increases the hollowness, but the random, shifting peaks remain makeable.

General: Ocean Beach is the most emotional stretch of beach in all of California, and perhaps the world, because it's located dead center in the middle of California, and it's open to every burble and bellow from the north and the south. The winds are dynamic, but the real factor is the tide. All that water moving in and out of the Golden Gate sweeps up and down Ocean Beach with enough force to dislocate swell and shift sandbars from hour to hour. Ocean Beach has many, many moods, from the manic ecstasy of clear, blue offshore fall days to the gloom and doom of stormy winter, windy spring and gray summer. There is no stretch of ocean in California that changes as much from hour to hour, day to day and season to season as Ocean Beach.</br></br>When Ocean Beach is on, you will see three miles of shifting, meaty, dark-green offshore peaks, from head-high to triple-overhead, cannonading the surf zone from south, west and north. A perfect day at Ocean Beach can be a mind-boggling sight, a mile after mile of perfect surf, with scattered humans doing their best to paddle through the impact zone, make it out the back and catch one of the buggers.</br></br>On a lot of days at Ocean Beach, just getting out can be a major accomplishment. Depending on swell and tide and sandbar, on many days there is a 200-yard "zone of death" in between the beach and the lineup. It can be as hard to get off the beach and out to sea for a surfer as it was for a marine to get from sea to shore on the beaches of Normandy. It takes knowledge, skill, strength and courage, but the deciding factor on a lot of days is still dumb luck.</br></br>Make it outside, and there are rewards, but your troubles aren't necessarily over. A good day at Ocean Beach is as good as any beachbreak in the world, but the good peaks here have a maddening quality of always being 50 yards away from where you're sitting. Even good surfers who surf the place all the time will get skunked, catching maybe one or two waves an hour, while paddling back and forth, trying to hunt down the big, shifting beasts.</br></br>Ocean Beach is bordered by Kelly's Cove on the north end and Sloat Street on the south end. In between are three miles of beachbreaks, which become emptier and lonelier from north to south. There is lots parking from Kelly's Cove down to VFW's in front of Golden Gate Park. At Lincoln Avenue, the parking lot ends, the dunes begin and the streets become alphabetical, beginning at Irving and running all the way to Wawona. You have to park along La Playa or Great Highway the Lesser to walk across Great Highway the Greater to get to the beach. Remember to look both ways as you cross Great Highway because traffic goes by fast. Tides: Varies with swell and part of the beach Size: Head high-3X overhead Wind: E Swell: NW, WNW, W Bottom: Sand Paddling: Strong if it's solid overhead. Often difficult even when it's small. Spot Rating: Quite good.

Intermediate-Advanced

Public parking on the north and south ends. Parking in the avenues for the rest of it.

October-January

Crowd Factor: Despite a long 3 mile beach, crowds are steadily increasing. Local Vibe: Small days see some attitude.

Parking can be found at the ends of streets like Sloat, Taraval, and Lincoln. At head-high, you might find some 300 guys spread along the entire beach; head further south out of town to find more secluded peaks. At quadruple-overhead, take your pick if you can make it out. In 2000, an estimated 15,000 cubic yards of sand and boulders was dumped along Ocean Beach as erosion protection. The city fathers want to armor the place with seawalls and quarry-rock revetments to save the Great Highway, but local residents and surfers have kinder, gentler ideas. In 2001, the mayor created a task force to look at issues affecting Ocean Beach, and two Surfrider chapter members were included.

Minimal and nothing really to worry about.

Frozen foreheads, noodle arm, broken boards, clean-up sets, and the current. And, as usual, sharks. But this is Northern California, you knew that already.