Izquierda Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s get straight into what’s happening with the surf over the next couple of weeks.

To be honest, this is a tough run. The guidance is pointing to a window that’s pretty much all onshore wind and sloppy conditions. The only break on the cards is Izquierda, a reef set-up that needs a clean NW swell to really fire, but for the first week and a half, the winds are just brutal.

The pattern starts with a solid NNE wind blowing straight onshore, whipping up a weak, short-period windswell around 4ft from the north. The combined energy is moderate (163), but it’s all junk. Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st of July are write-offs. The water temp is about average for the time of year, nothing out of the ordinary.

We get a slight shift on Saturday the 1st of August. Swell drops to 2ft from the NW with a period of 10 seconds, and the wind goes cross-onshore from the northwest. The combined energy is still moderate (192), but the wave comment says "poor surf conditions" and the description is "gentle cross-onshore and fairly choppy" in the morning, turning "moderate cross-onshore and choppy" in the arvo. It’s really not worth paddling out for.

The rest of the first week and into the second week is more of the same: onshore NNE winds, weak 2ft to 4ft swell, short periods. The surf is just blown out and messy. There’s a glimmer on the 6th of August with a 2ft WNW swell and a 10-second period, but the wind is cross-onshore again, making it choppy.

Then, around the 11th of August, the swell starts to build. We see 5ft from the north on Tuesday, with a period of 7 seconds. The combined energy climbs to 228, which is moderate. But the wind is still howling onshore from the north at 15 mph. The size is getting there, but the quality is still poor.

The standout period, if you can call it that, is the 12th to the 14th of August. The swell pushes up to 6ft on Wednesday morning, with a combined energy of 302 (solid moderate). But again, it’s all onshore wind. The period is only 7-8 seconds, so it’s a short-period windswell, not a clean groundswell. For a reef break like Izquierda, which needs a clean NW swell to be at its best, having the wind coming straight from the north is just nasty. The 6ft size is starting to get into the territory where beginners would struggle, but with the wind, it’s just a brutal, choppy mess.

If you’re a kite surfer, this whole setup might look interesting with the strong, consistent onshore winds and building swell. But for a paddle surfer, there’s really nothing to get excited about. The period is too short and the wind is all wrong.

So, the bottom line: there’s a good 10-day gap of basically no surf worth mentioning, and even when the swell finally shows up, the wind destroys it. Keep an eye on the charts, but for now, I’d find something else to do.

Rusty.

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