Surfing Four Doors, and Old Mans At SanO

[Califoilia]

If you haven't heard, the lower lots at San Onofre are now closed due to the king tides washing out 1/2 the roadway at the point, allowing maybe one vehicle to get through.  So Tuesday, StandinDan and myself ventured out from the upper lot, launching our 14s at the point, and paddling down to Four Doors to surf them there with maybe a half dozen or so long boarders who really didn't have a whole lot of problems with us being there.

Picked up a few decent waist high sets rolling through, but as the tide started sucking out, made the trek a little further south to Old Mans to surf with three or four long boarder down there.  Actually had some nice conversations with a couple of them who I'd seen out before, and who I've surfed fairly close to on my smaller board (7'8") during the summer months when we were sneaking up north of Pink Pole when nothing was working at Dog Patch.

Got a bunch more really nice waist sets to play on, with long lefts and rights available for everyone...OK, so for all four of us. =)

While I was at first kind of bummed knowing that we wouldn't be driving down to Dog Patch anytime soon, but then realizing that the very limited parking on top was going to keep the crowds to a scant minimum; figured that we're going to have some pretty fun times coming up when most of the surfers aren't going to be walking or paddling down too far south...but that it's a nice little "warm up" paddle on a SUP (even on my smaller boards), and that there's going to be plenty of fun for us now being able to SUS many of the areas that were off limits to us before. 

So I guess it's a case of, "When Mother Nature tries to give you lemons....make lemonade".  Fun times ahead for sure...yeehaw!    

[SlatchJim]

Dave,
You can almost see the future, nothing but parking up above and SUP open all the way south from the point, because the only ones able to access those breaks will be on sups.

Those tides have done a number to a bunch of breaks.  I drove north from SD today and stopped at Torrey, Cardiff and Ponto.  The only constant is change.

[PonoBill]

The good news--lots of open breaks. The bad news--the surf sucks and the water looks like chocolate milk. Or maybe poo milk.

So it looked from the highway that there weren't too many folks at Trails. Anyone know how it looks down there? I guess I'll just go and check myself tomorrow.

[TallDude]

The ocean looked a little cleaner this afternoon even though it's not. The wind has backed off and the surface has cleaned up anyway. The swell is down from yesterday. No direct polluted run off along Trails, so that might / will be the spot tomorrow. I'm out till this hole in the side of my face heals up. At least a another week. Actually, right between Trail 1 & 2 (the old arch) is a good spot. Just park at trail 1 and paddle south a couple hundred yards. Trail 1 and 6 get kinda busy on the weekends.

[Califoilia]

Tuesday was nice, the biggest pounding didn't come in until the morning hours Thursday...but yeah, I'm sure it'll be pretty ugly for a few more days until it all has a chance to settle down a bit.  The only real place I'm concerned with in that area is around Church, where San Mateo creek spills into it...and then not even all that much.

I'm sure there's some ugly nasties in it, but not nearly as bad a the "Orange County Dump Canal" that the dang San Juan Creek flowing into Doho has become.  South of Four Doors, and I'd be more worried of what the were pumping into the water from SONGS a few years back (which I really wasn't) than anything some rain might bring to it down there.

But that's just me....YMMV.

And yes, Jim the bottoms have been changing with all of the sand that the last two year's King Tides have moved around messing with the breaks.  Dog Patch has been pretty sketchy much/most of the time, and Nukes seems to be more finicky in wanting to break at only very selective tide heights...Old Mans seems to have become even better, but that could just be "the grass is always greener" syndrome when they bullhorn us out every time we start wandering a little to far when the darn surf school is in session over the summer.   

[Zooport]

I haven't kept up with things down at Sano, is it official that you can paddle surf north of the OK sign?  Or have people just been doing it and nobody is stopping them?  A buddy and I went down there a couple weeks ago and surfed at the pink poles with no opposition, is this the new normal?

[SlatchJim]

I heard about the additional erosion at the point.  TD, Sano, Capo, StandinDan, any updates on the schedule for road repair or are we going to have to wait for the California Coastal Commission to issue an 800 page study on the matter?