Duckpool Bay Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here with the full picture for Duckpool Bay. Gotta be straight with you – it's a bit of a mixed bag over the next couple of weeks, and we've got some quiet spells to sit through.

Looking at the overall pattern, the immediate future is pretty flat and sloppy. There's a bit of a wait on our hands. The wind is often onshore or cross-onshore, and the swell just isn't doing us any favours for the first week or so. We're looking at a real dry spell before anything worthwhile turns up.

Thursday the 2nd gets us started, but it’s not one to get excited about. We've got a 5ft swell rolling in from the west, with a period of 9 seconds. That combined energy reading is 399, so there's some oomph there, but the problem is a strong cross-onshore wind out of the northwest at 12 mph. It's choppy, messy, and just poor conditions all round.

Friday the 3rd and into the weekend looks even smaller. We're dropping down to 4ft on Friday, then 3ft on Saturday, and right down to 2ft by Sunday morning. The wind is onshore and the scores are all poor. It is just not worth paddling out. You’re looking at a real gap in quality surf here from Thursday the 2nd right through until Tuesday the 8th.

Now, Tuesday morning the 8th is interesting, but not for the swell. The waves are tiny, at 2ft. However, the wind goes completely glassy – a dead calm with 0 mph. That’s a big positive for clean conditions, but there’s just not enough water moving to surf. A real tease.

We get a brief glimpse of something on Thursday the 9th. A 2ft west swell with a good 10-second period, and the wind swings offshore from the east at 12 mph. It's clean, but it’s tiny. The combined energy is only 46, which is weak. It’s surfable, but you’d want a log and low expectations.

Then we hit another big gap. From Friday the 10th right through to the morning of Monday the 13th, it’s all ankle-biters with poor to ordinary conditions. Cross-off winds keep things clean, but the swell energy is pathetic.

Here’s the real standout, the one to circle on your calendar. It comes in on the morning of Tuesday the 14th of July. The water temp is sitting at 63°, which is 4° warmer than normal for this time of year – that's very unusual and a nice bonus. For the surf: we’ve got a 4ft west swell, with a period of 11 seconds. That’s a proper long period groundswell, which brings good energy and shape. The wind is coming out of the north-northeast at just 3 mph, giving us glassy conditions. The combined energy is 307, which is solid. The forecast says "expect good surf conditions." This is the real pick of the two-week window. The west swell matches the optimum direction for Duckpool Bay, and with it being glassy, the waves will be clean and lined up. Keep in mind that with a longer period like 11 seconds, the sets might have some bigger lulls, making the paddle out a bit easier, but the waves themselves could break a little straighter on a beach break setup.

After that high point, things fade again. Wednesday the 15th and Thursday the 16th offer some small, clean waves in the 2ft to 2ft range under offshore winds. It's surfable for a longboard, but nothing to get excited about. The last entry on the 17th shows a pulse of 4ft swell, but with a short, weak period of 6 seconds and onshore wind. That's poor, messy surf.

So, to sum it up: there's a lot of waiting for not a lot right now. The best bet, and the one real standout, is Tuesday morning the 14th. If you can get on it then, you'll be rewarded with clean, glassy lines from a proper west groundswell. The rest of the time, it’s a board-waxing, fin-checking kind of fortnight.

Rusty.

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