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Spot: Rincon Point, CA
The Waves
From top to bottom, Rincon divides into three: The Indicator, The Creek and the Cove.
The Indicator is at the top of the point, a big wave that covers half a football field before closing out in front of the mouth of Rincon Creek.
Rincon Creek is the Santa Barbara/Ventura County line, by the way, and the Rivermouth is a shorter wave than The Indicator, but more protected from wind and bump.
Inside of The Rivermouth is the Cove, and this is the wave that make grown men break all their promises. When the Cove is doing the thing, it is, as Captain Cook once described surfing: “Scarcely to be credited.”
A few times in a lifetime, Rincon will be big enough and clean enough to offer a 500-yard ride from the Indicator to the Cove, but you need to be a combination of Tom Curren and Jackie Chan to run the gauntlet and make that incredible wave.
Best Swell, Size and Direction
South and southwest swells don’t get to Rincon at all because of Santa Cruz and Anacapa Islands. Also, northwest swells with more north than west can’t get around Point Conception and into the Santa Barbara Channel.
Rincon breaks from one foot to 20 feet, but small swells are warbly and really big swells either load up the point or make it impossible to get out, so the ideal is somewhere in the middle.
Adam Wright is a surf forecaster for WaveWatch and he has a blog which gives a pretty good explanation of why swells of a certain period are good for Rincon, and others miss it entirely. For that, click here.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 was ideal. Located 38 nautical miles west of Santa Barbara, the 46054 buoy rang up a pure 12-foot west swell with 20-second intervals. At Rincon that translated to waves that some called 8 feet and some called 10, but everyone was calling it A+, Five Star, As Good As it Gets. So, that’s ideal.
Surrounding Spots
Just around the corner to the west, Rincon Backbeach is a summer spot popular with surf schools and beginners. To the east, there is a stretch of beach at La Conchita that has fun beachbreak surf when it’s small and the tide is right. The next point down from Rincon is called Little Rincon or La Conchita Point. It breaks on the inside of that long oil pier and sometimes is the spot Rincon surfers will run to when Rincon is too big or stormy.
Going west and east, there are a number of great pointbreaks along here that light up on a big west swell, and also a number of reefs and beachbreaks that break on smaller swells and windswells.
Difficulty Level
Rincon is a good beginner wave when it’s small, although the cobblestones are a tricky rockdance and will ding loose boards. As the swell goes up, the degree of difficulty goes up and Rincon can be downright treacherous when the swell is really humming. In February of 2007, an unusually strong storm off Point Conception produced a big west swell that came up fast, like Hawaii. Rincon was eight-foot plus, but there was so much water moving around, only six guys could get out.
That’s pretty difficult.
Localism Factor
Rincon has a well-established pecking order that has been hammered out over three and four generations of surfing. But these days, even the most solid pecking order is shattered by the sheer numbers of outsiders who flood into Rincon. Chaos pretty much reigns when the swell is good, and it’s not shocking to see 8 to 15 people take off on the same wave as it falls like a house of cards down the line.
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