Crab Island Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Look, I’ll be straight with you – we’re in for a rough stretch at Crab Island. This reef setup is exposed to the west, and while it’s a fair consistent wave for the advanced crew, the next two weeks are looking pretty grim. We’ve got a long blank run ahead, starting with nothing worth paddling out for until late in the period. The water is sitting at 64°F and that’s a touch warmer than normal for the time of year, a bit of a tease if you ask me.

From Saturday the 15th right through to Wednesday the 27th of August, it’s a wasteland. That’s nearly two weeks of poor surf quality – small, weak swell with combined energy readings barely cracking 100 (104 is the peak on the 15th morning, and it only gets worse). Winds are mostly onshore or cross-onshore, often moderate to fresh, so it’s choppy and lumpy. On Saturday the 15th morning, there’s 3ft of west swell at 8 seconds, but that light north-northwest breeze is cross-on, so it’s not clean. Afternoon drops to 2ft and onshore. Sunday the 16th is even smaller with messy cross-shore chop. A few days mid-week, like Wednesday the 19th, see swell building to 6ft–7ft from the west with a period of 9 seconds, and the combined energy climbs to 720 – moderate wave energy – but with strong onshore winds at 22 mph, it’s just blown-out junk. That size is getting into expert-only territory anyway, but the quality is poor.

Thursday the 20th has 6ft west swell in the morning (525 combined energy), but it’s cross-onshore and choppy. The rest of that week and into the next is tiny – often below 2ft – with clean spells on the 22nd afternoon and 23rd morning from cross-off winds, but the swell is so weak it’s barely a ripple. The combined energy drops as low as 11 on the 24th.

Finally, on Thursday the 27th of August, we get a little glimmer. Morning brings 3ft of swell from the southwest at 9 seconds (115 combined energy), with a light south-southeast breeze giving cross-off conditions – clean surf. The direction is a cross-off for this exposed west-facing spot, so it’s the best we’ll see. That’s the standout, but even then the waves are small and the forecast is ‘surfable but very ordinary’. It’s a long wait for a shortboard session. Crowds are often here, but I wouldn’t worry about that – there won’t be many takers. The afternoon goes onshore again, so bag that morning window. After that, it fizzles back to tiny, poor-quality slop through to the 30th.

So, if you’re a kite surfer, the stronger wind days mid-week might be more your scene – the setup looks more interesting for that than paddle surfing. For the rest of us, keep the board waxed and hope the long-range forecasts shift. It tends not to stay this poor for long around here.

Rusty.

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