Chinamans Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, grab your boards and listen up. It’s Rusty here, and I’ve been staring at the charts for our stretch of coast. We’ve got a wild ride ahead over the next couple of weeks, with a proper lull at the start before things get seriously interesting.

The opening days are a write-off for a decent paddle. We're looking at a couple of days of poor, choppy conditions with onshore junk and moderate to fresh breezes. The swell is there, but it’s messy. You’d be fighting a losing battle. This is the calm before the storm, coast-wise.

Things start to clean up around Friday the 11th, but it’s still marginal, with a lot of cross-shore energy making things tricky. The waves are dropping a touch, but the wind is slowly coming around. The real shift happens on Sunday the 13th. The wind finally swings offshore, and the ocean glassies right up. That morning, it’s a bit small at 4ft with a fresh offshore, but by the afternoon, the wind eases and it's clean. This is where we start to see some real shape.

Now, keep your eye on Chinamans for one of the genuine standouts of the whole period. The morning of Monday, September 21st is the one. We've got a solid 5ft of SW groundswell rolling in with that long 16-second period, and the wind is a clean, moderate offshore. Conditions are set to be excellent. It’s a reef break and pretty advanced, so only the crew will be out there. That’s the pick of the bunch for me.

Before that, the Saturday morning of the 19th is also going to be pumping. That’s a big one, with 12ft of SW swell and a huge 9472 combined energy reading. It’s going to be powerful and probably only for the expert crew out there on the bigger boards. Wind is cross-off, so there should be some clean faces, but that size is no joke. A few days prior, the morning of Thursday the 17th is also looking good with cleaner conditions and smaller, more manageable waves—a solid option if the big Saturday swell is too much.

There’s a brief window of smaller but clean surf around Monday the 21st as well, with offshore winds and clean lines, before we see another pulse of energy. The water temp is running about average for this time of year, which around here means a good summer wetsuit is the go.

So, there's some patience required to start, but the second week has some real firepower. The long-period swells like this are best on the reefs, which is where Chinamans will shine.

Rusty.

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