Church Cove Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, let’s get into it. Gotta be straight with you – looking at the whole 16-day window for Church Cove, it’s a tough one. There’s a big, long gap with nothing to get excited about, and then a flicker of life right at the very end.

From Friday the 10th of July right through to Wednesday the 23rd of July, it’s basically a desert. The swell is tiny, mostly bouncing around 0.7 ft to 2 ft, and the wind is a persistent cross-offshore breeze that’s not doing us any favours. The combined wave energy barely gets out of the double digits, sitting at a weak 12 to 171 – that’s just not enough push to make anything rideable. The period is generally short, around 8 to 10 seconds, so it’s weak, crumbly, and directionless. For nearly two weeks, there’s just nothing for a surfer to paddle out for.

Now, there’s a bit of a change on the horizon. The best bet – and I mean the only real standout – shows up on Thursday the 24th of July. We see a jump in swell to 4 ft in the morning, building to 5 ft in the afternoon out of the WNW. The period sits at 9 to 10 seconds, so it’s a short-period wind swell, but the energy finally gets into the moderate range at 283 to 339. However, and this is a big however, the wind turns onshore and cross-onshore from the W and SW. It’s gonna be choppy and bumpy. The break is fairly exposed, but with that wind and swell direction, it’s going to be a messy, blown-out wave. There’s a risk it’s more interesting for a kite surfer than a paddle surfer, to be honest.

Then on Friday the 25th of July, it’s still onshore with a 4 ft swell, but it’s a similar story – chopped up.

So, the long and short of it: the only half-decent window is that Thursday the 24th, and it’s not going to be clean. The rest of the fortnight is a write-off. It’s a pretty normal pattern for this spot to have long blank runs when the wind is wrong. Forecasts can change, but as it stands, keep your board in the car for a while.

Rusty.

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