L. Paul Mann photo courtesy of Noozhawk


The Queen Wakes Up Thanks to Southern-Hemisphere Swell

Normally mid- to late-summer is a time when The Queen is asleep.  The pressure gradients that drive local windswells mellow, leaving the local coastline practically devoid of any signs of life, or at least of rideable surf - forcing local surfers to travel either North or South to score decent surf.  This past weekend, however, an anomaly occurred, created by a Southern-Hemisphere storm that sent big and burly lines up inside the Santa Barbara Channel to unload solid left-handers at the top of Rincon Point. Beginning on Friday and lasting through Sunday, conditions were ripe, and the lineup was at times crowded as goofy-footers reveled in the opportunity to go frontside at The 'Con...

Meanwhile, surfers who opted to travel found epic, double-overhead surf from Ventura to the Mexican border and beyond.  I myself travelled South to LA County to shoot a group of locals who stroked into some killer barrels at a spot called Drainpipes.

Pictured below are Brandon Smith of Channel Islands Surfboards and Tarik Khashoggi of J7.





Be sure to check out more images from Backside Rincon taken by L. Paul Mann here.




For more local surf coverage please visit www.SantaBarbaraSurfer.com