By Tom Modugno of GoletaSurfing
Summer 2024 looked a lot like this. Waiting and wishful thinking.
Beautiful beach days.
But if you’re trying to get some surf, you were a little frustrated.
Well, we had a few fun days, but they were few and far between.
That’s normal for Goleta, but this year seemed a little extreme.
When we did get a little surf, the local boys were on it.
Long time Goleta locals like Travis Bower appeared out of nowhere.
Reno Bertuzzi made the most of marginal conditions this day.
And of course John Randolph (aka JR) was on it when it was breaking, as always…
Dazzling us all with his switch foot takeoffs and so forth…
But mostly just having more fun than anyone else in the water.
Zach Brown came down from the valley for a few waves.
And he was not disappointed.
Zach brought a friend from Kauai, Chad Hospodar, and he was having a lot of fun on these chunky little Goleta waves.
Chad has a surf wax company over on the islands called Black Mountain.
So, besides some small wind swell, that pretty much summed up all the surf in Goleta for the summer! Now that we are in October, we turn our thoughts to the coming months and the swells from the north…
And that reminded me, I never posted my photos from last Thanksgiving up on the Central Coast!
As usual, there were waves for Thanksgiving, and waves up north are a littler more intense than Goleta waves.
A little colder, faster and heavier.
Add some howling offshores blowing spray into your eyes as you try to drop in, and you got yourself a good old time, Cen Cal style.
Nothing says autumn like a brisk morning surf check.
Thanksgiving 2023 was a little different than most years, however. Something bigger was coming…
The swell increased a bit the following day and we went to a more remote location to see how it looked.
It looked like a good day for this old guy to stay on dry land and take pictures of the experts.
Just a few hardy souls were out at this spot and they seemed to know what they were doing.
Pretty heavy drops with nothing but rocky cliffs along the coast waiting to greet you if you make a mistake.
We were perfectly content to watch the show from safety of the bluffs.
The sun slowly set and the surfers slowly made the long paddle back to the safety of a distant sandy beach.
So that’s what last Thanksgiving looked like up the coast a bit. Fast, hollow and colder than that leftover turkey.
And beautiful.
We’ll be waiting here in the comfortable bushes of Goleta, waiting to see what happens this fall….
Great stuff, thanks for sharing!!
What a crap Summer it was for waves. Really hoping for a great Fall and Winter.
As always, great post and pics tMo. Thank you.
Alex, it’s summer. How long have you surfed here? Summer stinks for waves. It’s like this here.
Here comes Basic with his usual, YoU’rE NoT fROM hEre nonsense.
Basic, there are spots on the Gaviota coast that break in the Summer. If you grew up surfing here you’d know them. This Summer has been particularly flat.
And to answer your question–I’ve been surfing here since around 1972 when my Dad first got me started at Leds.
And my dad got me started at Hammonds, early 70’s. So what? Get used to flat in the summer here.
Guess you’ve never surfed Gaviota.
Great photos, thank you for sharing.
Yes, Thanksgiving always has surf.
Thanks, Tom. Your articles are the best.