Caspar Creek Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let's talk about the surf window for Caspar Creek.

Right out of the gate, I gotta be honest with you – it's a grim stretch. We've got a long, long wait ahead before anything even sniffs at being surfable. The first couple of weeks are a write-off. The wind is relentless out of the NW, hammering the coast with cross-onshore chop. We're looking at a solid 13-day drought of no real recommendations. The waves that do show up, like the 3ft SW groundswell on Thursday the 10th, are just blown to pieces by that 9 mph NW wind. There's some serious energy out there – the combined swell hits 784 – but it's all messy and poor. This pattern just repeats, day after day, with that steady NW wind ruining everything. Even when the swell jumps up to 10ft on Monday the 14th, it's a choppy, lumpy mess with a combined energy of 1494. That’s not surf for a beginner, that’s a washing machine for experts only, and not even a good one.

Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. We have to wait until Tuesday the 22nd of September. That afternoon, the wind swaps around to the W and goes glassy. The swell is only a small 3ft from the SW with a long 16-second period, and the combined energy is 644. It's not big, but after nearly two weeks of junk, that "expect good surf conditions" note is a beautiful thing. This is the first proper stand-out in the entire 16-day run: clean, lined-up little waves for a log or a funboard. Caspar Creek is a sheltered beginner-friendly spot here (Mendocino), and while this is small, it’s clean and it’s all we’ve got. The water temp is about average for the time of year at 59°F, so a spring suit is fine.

The next day, Wednesday the 23rd, keeps the hope alive. We get the glassy conditions again in the afternoon, with a bit more size – 6ft from the NW at 10 seconds. The combined energy is 535. That's a proper longboard-to-step-up wave. This is genuinely the best-looking period of the whole outlook. But, it's a long way off, so treat it as promising rather than a lock.

After that, the window slams shut again with poor conditions returning through to the 25th. So, there it is: a 13-day wait for a brief two-day window of clean, small-to-modest surf on the 22nd and 23rd.

Rusty

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