Red Strand (Dirk Bay) Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Hey folks, Rusty here. Let me level with you about Red Strand (Dirk Bay) for the next couple of weeks. The outlook is a tough one, I won't sugarcoat it. We've got a long stretch with no real surf on offer right through to the end of the period. There's a big gap of several days here where you're better off doing something else.

The water temp is sitting around 60°F at the start, which is pretty normal for this time of year, nothing unusual there.

For the first week, from Saturday the 4th through to Saturday the 11th of July, every session is flagged as poor. We're talking tiny swell, mostly 0.7ft or less, with weak combined energy readings often below 20. Winds are all over the place but mostly cross or cross-on, which is no good for a sheltered spot like this. You'll get a few moments of glassy or offshore conditions, like on Wednesday the 8th morning with a glassy 0.3ft from the S, or Thursday the 9th morning with an offshore NNE breeze and a clean 0.3ft, but there's simply no swell to work with. It's flat, plain and simple.

Moving into the second week, things don't really improve. Sunday the 12th of July shows a bit more energy, with combined energy hitting 50 on the Sunday afternoon from a 0.7ft SSW swell, but it's still tiny and the winds are cross-off. Monday the 13th actually sees the biggest swell of the whole period, with a 1.0ft SSW swell and combined energy reaching 119 (moderate energy) in the morning, and clean cross-off winds. But 1.0ft is still barely a ripple. The period is very long at 19 seconds on the Monday afternoon, which is a proper groundswell, but at that size it's not doing anything. It's just a long wait between tiny waves.

The real highlight, if you can even call it that, is on Saturday the 18th of July afternoon, when we get a 4ft swell from the E. That's the biggest size in the whole forecast, but the period is a short and weak 6 seconds, with combined energy of 80, and cross winds. It's a lumpy, chop fest. Honestly, with that wind and the short-period junk, this setup at a sheltered reef might actually look more interesting for kite surfing than paddle surfing. It's not worth paddling out for.

To be brutally honest, there's not a single standout, not one day worth getting excited about. The whole 16-day window is a write-off. It's just one of those blank runs for the area. Forecasts can change, but as it stands, leave the board at home.

Rusty.

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