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Spot: Sebastian Inlet, FL
Surf City of the East Coast, or at least of Florida. Well, Central Florida, anyway. Sebastian Inlet is the Surf City of Central Florida.
Take a look at Florida on Google Earth and you will see an east coastline that is one incredibly long stretch of sandy beach broken up by natural barrier islands, from South Beach Miami, all the way to Georgia and out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Cape Canaveral is just about the only large obstruction in that long line of sandy beaches. The only other obstructions are piers, tropical reefs, your uncle’s sunken yacht from the last hurricane, and jetties marking the natural and manmade inlets that allow boaters access to Florida’s inland waterways.
Those piers and jetties put some character into the endless miles of beachbreak, and the most famous jetty break in all of Florida is Sebastian Inlet.
As Kelly Slater said in Pipe Dreams: “Brevard County has always been the hub of talent on Florida’s eastern coast, and since the 1970s, all of that has been centered on Sebastian Inlet, an hour’s drive south from Cocoa Beach. It’s a beautiful State Park with lots of vegetation and very little development other than a long rock jetty. I’d been camping and fishing there with my dad and Sean, but surfing it was another thing. Even as a sheltered kid at Islander Hut, I hard people speak of Sebastian as hallowed ground. Guys got in fist-fights over waves there. It was a world-famous surf spot, and Cocoa Beach was nothing.”
The Good
A great place to take the family for all the beach frolics: fishing, sand castles, skimboarding, windsurfing, kiteboarding, swimming and BBQs. Although highly illegal, the jetty makes a great launch pad for jumping into the shark-infested feeding grounds called Monster Hole every time a passing cold front brings northeast swells.
Sebastian Inlet is one of the most flexible jetty breaks on the east coast. During the winter months northeast ground Swells come in long periods and provide classic First Peak refractions. During spring, south winds can be common and the jetty has been known to provide a rideable sandbar break. If it’s going to break, the Inlet will be rideable.
And the surf has its moments. Check out this YouTube of the kind of day First Peak addicts live for, May 9, 2007: Click here.
The Bad
Due to Sebastian’s worldwide reputation as the most consistent spot out in central, southern, and west Florida, weekend warriors from these other regions tend to flock to the Inlet’s First, Second, & Third peaks to get small nuggets of rideable surf while their home breaks are barely breaking. This “Just go up coast” and “up the coast will be bigger” mentally is meteorologically and geographically. The Bahamian islands diffract most rideable wind swells from reaching southern Florida beaches with any power or size.
Flatness. Because of the long, shallow continental shelf that runs the length of Florida, and because the otherwise rough and tumble Atlantic Ocean is strangely calm in regard to Florida, the ocean along here is almost indistinguishable from the inland waterways on the other side of the beach.
To wit: Florida can be a Surfer’s Nightmare. (It’s a love-hate relationship) 2-3 week flat spells are common in the summer. There are good reasons for this, according to Mark Sponsler: “Florida is flat much of the year due to two physical constraints: The first is continental shelf, which extends well to the east of the coast setting up a long shallow approach to land generating much drag on any inbound swell. The second issue is Florida’s unfavorable meteorological configuration. The jet stream flows from west to east in both the north and southern hemispheres and drives weather systems at the oceans surface in the same direction. Relative to the East Coast, that is an offshore direction. Most storms approach from inland, push off the coast and direct most of their fetch at targets on the other side of the Atlantic like Europe or South Africa.
Sharks. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, Florida leads the world with the most total shark attacks. Between 1882-2007 Florida had a total of 577 reported attacks, 13 were fatalities. 210 of those attacks were centralized in Volusia County, 90 in Brevard County (Sebastian’s County). Unfortunately, in recent years the most common activity for these victims was surfing (http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/FLactivity.htm). Local Knowledge says to avoid surfing when large schools of mullet are running near shore. Be safe and be aware of your surroundings.
The Strange
Wave Watch surf forecaster and former Florida resident Mark Sponsler summed it up nicely: “Surf is king in Florida, with thousands of eager groms, longboarders, and wannabe rippers who will do anything to get out of the heat, humidity and mosquitoes and into marginally cooler water to ride anything that looks like a wave. When there’s even a hint of swell there’s only one spot that catches and magnifies it for all it’s worth: First Peak at the Inlet is that spot. There is only one real peak that refracts off the jetty making for a perfect little A-frame that peels right down the beach. There’s a group of about 15 guys that fight like dogs to be on it every time it shows any sign of movement, with another 30 that are waiting to ascend to their posts, and they all claim their right to surf it to the exclusion of everyone else. There’s only one catch: they have to share it with redneck fisherman poised just 50 ft away who take pleasure in casting right into the lineup. That doesn’t count when schools of densely packed mullet swarm just off the beach though the lineup, with bull, sand and thresher sharks trolling through gorging for all their worth. It not the best wave in the world, and not the most crowded in sheer numbers, Sebastian Inlet certainly is pound for pound the highest density of people with conflicting self interest crammed into a surf spot.”
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