Lagoon surfing 2 hr pre/post low tide

[SquirtleDr]

Hi all, I have been faced with a challenge when it comes to the break I'm currently at right now. I am in Guatemala and the location nearest to where I'm staying is lagoon in the shape of a U. The past few weeks have been fine since I've had the opportunity to surf a Low - High tide, however these past few days the time that is available for me to surf is now a High - Low tide.

The problem that I'm facing is when I am surfing the High - Low, there is a very strong presence of an outbound tide which pulls me out toward the sea. I would normally use the alpha current to get out in a good spot and catch the waves however with naivety of how the ocean works I've found myself being sucked out by this same alpha current in these different conditions (which is now obvious to me).

My question is, what is the safest way to be surfing a high - low tide seeing as how the water is pulling out with a substantial amount of energy, I don't want to get caught out in deep water alone since there are no lifeguards around in case something bad were to happen. What do some you experienced guys do with High - Low tides, any tips you may have for me?

[jaffa1949]

Ah you are back and living the dream?

A little bit confused about your description of the Lagoon / beach and tides, as in your first post and newness to surfing your description sort of say the opposite of what i believe may be happening.

To help can you give the name of your location, then i can google the coast line and offer a safe opinion of what to do!
A question i would ask is what is the tidal range?

also are there other and especially local surfers, ask them what the risks are at this beach!.
Drowning seriously wrecks anyone‘s surf trip!

[dtc]

To add to Jaffa, is the current because the lagoon is emptying out as the tide starts to go down?

[SquirtleDr]

Hey Jaffa! Ya man I ended up going to Guatemala instead of Sri Lanka because of the corona virus epidemic effecting the travel to Sri Lanka as the connecting flight was in China. I have been surfing here for a few weeks and had been looking things up and enlightening myself with more knowledge.

I am in iztapa Guatemala, I'm not sure of what you mean by tidal ranges, and I will ask one of the local surfers here about surfing these conditions.

And yes dtc I believe it is because the lagoon is emptying out.

[dtc]

If the lagoon is emptying out, then that creates a strong current and there isnt much you can do. The current will be stronger than you can paddle. Usually where there is a strong outwards current there arent many waves (the current flattens them) or there is a deep channel (caused by the water flow) and hence not many waves as the water is too deep at the higher tides. Most of the time the current will create a sandbank either to the side of the channel, or out the back once the current starts to die down (and the sand sinks to the bottom). From the pictures of Iztapa, it looks like the bank might be out the back, meaning that when the current is at its peak you may still need to sit somewhere the current is.

However it should be possible to paddle sideways away from the main part of the current and surfing somewhere that is less affected - even if this is not right on the peak, at least its somewhere safer and easier. Often the current is fairly narrow, there will be a channel and thats where its strongest, but you don't have to paddle sideways too far to be out of the current (this depends on the location of course) - maybe only 30m.

But if the current is quite strong - and some of the lagoons create very strong currents - then just surf somewhere else if possible. Or at a different time of day

[jaffa1949]

pretty much as DTC says. i don‘t need to repeat that, it looks like there are at least 3 drains to the lagoon system that would be active as the tide goes out. Local,tide charts or the local fishermen would know the different heights of the tide.
Simply put if there is a one meter difference between low and high tide, then all the area that inundated at high tide has to flow out for low tide, more so for bigger differences.
I think that you may be surfing inside the largest breakwater containment walls on the sandbank inside there?
if so, you really are risking being flushed out along with every item of river and harbour waste, are there Caymans there too?