Surfing Waves

NORTH WIND UP TO 30 KNOTS WITH 35 KT GALES. CHANCE OF
SHOWERS UNTIL MIDDAY. WAVES 8 TO 12 FEET.

I just copied and pasted this from the NOAA website, it is out local for tomorrow, not bad for a lake 'eh.

you know somewhere you can get shelter from those winds? 35 knot gales doenst sound that great.

Shelter? From the wind?? 35 knots are barely gales. Makes your forearms tough trying to hold onto your board while you are walking out on the pier to jump off.

you just better hope that wind is offshore.

I surf in a lake, there aren't any waves if it is offshore.

We surf by big cement piers in the heavy wind, the pier blocks the wind, and shapes the waves. 35 Knot wind, Onshore, and they are not blown out at all. The wave period is always like 5 seconds here too. But they do get nice and clean.

where do u live?

you really need to move to the coast man, that lake surfing thing just sounds like more hassle than its worth.

Get some photos for us. I still think its not true. I watched a lake surf dvd and it was all 3ft mess.

Most of the Lake Surf DVD's are about 3 foot mess. Check out "unsalted" it has some good footage of barreling waves.

Over the next month or so I will get some pics on my digital. I have been wanting to anyway.

This is a picture that I took on my digital last spring. It is the only one I can find, except some when I was even farther away from the lake, and you can't make anything out (I'm not a photog)

This was after the wind changed directions. Originally the wind was out of the SW, and it made the waves line up real nice as they wrapped around the pier (photo is of the north side of the pier), but I didn't take this picture until the wind turned West with a little North in it.

(as far as 3 foot slop) If you look half way down the pier, you will notice a wave coming about 3-4 feet above the top of the pier (it isn't breaking against it, if you look close you can see that it is rolling against it, there wasn't enough north in the wind to send it into the pier) And as far as the smaller waves go, those aren't really waves, that is just mess between the sets. The larger wave in the middle is obviously a survivor of the wind turning west and weakening the waves.

The drop from the pier down to normal water level (during flat conditions) is about 6 1/2 - 7 feet (on average, and for the last year and the year before the water levels in the lakes were down) So, this wave has to be at least 8 foot. You can reference it against the lighthouse in the back (they are generally pretty tall) The waves in this pic are Not pretty, but like I said, I was surfing when the waves were good, I just took a picture after I came out and went back to my truck. Just to give you an idea that the size is definately there, and they get more size than this, this is a spring swell which sucks here (warm wind blowing against cold water, takes a lot of wind), (and it isn't all 3 foot days like what has been captured in most films about it).

wow, those are waves? i thought they were chunks of ice.
.
.
.
.


oops. my brain is dead.

Like I said, I am not the worlds greatest photographer. They do kind of look like chunks of ice though. That was late spring though, the ice was gone by then. I remember because it was cold that day, and I got out of my truck (slept in it at the beach overnight) to go down to the pier and check it out that morning and I locked myself out of my truck, I was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt (what I was sleeping in) and the wind was blowing hard and it was cold. Luckily I have road service.