Cap Frehel Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, folks, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you. Looking at the 16-day window, it’s a pretty flat and frustrating stretch for Cap Frehel. The ocean’s just not cooperating. We’ve got a long, barren run ahead, and the first real sign of life doesn't show up until much later.

For the next week and a half, we're looking at tiny, weak surf. The energy is just pathetic, with combined swell energy readings mostly in the single digits or low teens, like 37 or 29 on Thursday, and dropping down to almost nothing by the weekend. We’re talking ankle-biters to maybe knee-high at best, and that's being generous. Winds are mostly onshore or cross-onshore, chopping up what little texture there is. It’ll be a tough slog just to get a crumb of a ride.

There’s a gap of several days here where it’s just not worth paddling out. We'll see a little bump on Sunday the 10th, but it's still weak at 2ft with an onshore wind, so it won't be pretty. The water temp on Thursday is sitting at 68°F, which is a solid 4°F warmer than usual for this time of year – that part is nice at least.

The real change, and I mean the only thing that gets my heart rate up, comes nearly two weeks out. Around the 20th and 21st of August, the energy finally starts to build. We see the combined swell energy jump from a lazy 150 to a solid 374 on the morning of the 20th, and it stays strong at 353 in the afternoon. The swell also pushes up into the 4 to 5ft range on the 20th and 21st. That’s a proper pulse of swell, with a period hitting 10 seconds on the 20th, coming from the WNW.

However, and this is a big however, the swell direction is from the WNW, which is not the optimum direction for Cap Frehel. It’s a reef break that prefers a west swell. This northwest angle might make it a bit more walled or sections could close out a little. Also, the winds are all over the place that week. We’ll see a morning on the 21st with a light offshore and a 5ft swell – that's your standout window. That’s the morning to be out there if you can wait that long. The conditions on the 20th are more challenging, with stronger cross-shore winds making it lumpy.

So, for the next 16 days, don't get your hopes up. It’s a waiting game. The call is to sit tight, watch the horizon, and mark your calendar for the morning of Thursday, the 21st of August. That’s the one that looks like it might actually deliver something worth getting wet for. It’s a long way off, so take it with a grain of salt, but it’s the only promising light at the end of this very flat tunnel.

Rusty.

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