Hammonds Reef Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s coming our way for the next couple of weeks. I gotta be straight with you – it’s not looking great. We’ve got a long stretch of small, messy surf ahead, and honestly, there’s no real standout session in the whole 16-day window. Let’s break it down.

We’re starting off now and looking at a bit of a wait. The first day with any real recommendation doesn’t come until Wednesday 29 July, and even then, it’s a tough sell. The main spot on the radar is a sheltered reef called Hammonds Reef, and it’s an advanced-only wave when it’s working, but conditions are far from ideal. The swell is coming from the SSW at around 3ft, with a long 16-second period, so there’s decent energy in the water (combined energy of 378), but the wind is cross-on from the SW at 6 mph, which is going to put a bit of a ruffle on the surface.

The water temperature is 69°, and that’s a whopping 6° warmer than normal for this time of year – that’s very unusual, so you might not need as thick a wetsuit, but don’t get your hopes up for the waves themselves.

For the rest of the first week, it’s a similar story. Thursday 30 July through to Sunday 2 August, we’ve got a mix of S and W swells, all small, between 2ft and 3ft. The periods drop from 16 seconds down to 8 seconds on Saturday, so the energy gets weaker (combined energy dropping from 427 down to 140). The wind stays light and cross-on the whole time, so the surf is clean-ish but small and weak. Nothing to get excited about.

From Monday 3 August onwards, it gets even smaller. Swell heights drop to 1.0ft to 2ft, and the combined energy dips into double digits – that’s weak. By Tuesday 4 August, the energy is down to 72, and it just stays flat and weak through to the middle of August. There’s a little blip of energy around 7 August and again on 11 August, with some longer-period SSW and SW swell giving combined energy back up over 200 (206 and 246 respectively), but the swell height never breaks 2ft. That’s strictly longboard or even no-board territory for most of us.

Because the swell is almost always under 5ft, it’s not going to be too big for anyone, but it’s also not going to be good. The wind is never offshore – it’s always cross-on from the SW or SSW, light, but enough to mess with the face. The optimum swell direction for this break is W, but we’re mostly getting SSW and S, so it’s not matching up.

There’s no day in this whole forecast where the surf quality ticks over into “good.” It’s all marked as poor surf conditions. No standouts. No hidden gems. This is a blank run, and for a sheltered reef like Hammonds which needs a specific swell direction to work, this is pretty normal. Sometimes the forecasts change, but right now, it’s a long wait.

Rusty.

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