Stinky Bay Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Let’s talk about what’s on the cards for Stinky Bay over the next couple of weeks. To be straight with you, it’s a grim stretch ahead, and there’s a long, painful gap with nothing worth paddling out for until well into the second week.

The next week is pretty much a write-off. From Sunday the 13th right through to Saturday the 19th, every session gets a zero – just poor surf with messy, choppy conditions and onshore or cross-onshore winds. Swell hangs around waist to chest high at best, but the wind state is relentless. You’ll see a fresh breeze out of the WSW or WNW most days, and the combined wave energy is weak to moderate, topping out around 701 on the Saturday afternoon, but that’s with a messy 6ft swell and period down around 8 seconds – junk. Even when the swell nudges 6ft on Wednesday the 16th, the wind is fresh and cross-onshore, so it’s all lumpy. Nothing doing.

Then on Sunday the 20th, things finally start to look a little more promising. The morning is marginal – 4ft from the WNW with a solid 13-second period, but the wind is light cross-onshore, so it’s not clean. The afternoon though, that’s the standout of the entire outlook. By Sunday afternoon, the wind swings to the south at just 3 mph and goes glassy. The swell holds at 4ft but shifts to the west with a long 14-second period, and the combined energy jumps to a solid 703 – that’s moderate to strong energy. This is a proper groundswell, and it’ll wrap into Stinky Bay clean. The optimum swell direction here is west, so this is bang on. Conditions will be glassy, and for an exposed reef break that’s fairly consistent, this is the best you’ll get. Keep in mind, crowds are listed as “often,” so expect company. The water temperature anomaly isn’t given, so call it about average for this time of year.

From Monday the 21st onwards, it’s back to poor surf for several days. Winds pick up again, swells drop, and you’re looking at more cross-onshore junk. The next little blip comes on Thursday the 24th in the morning – glassy conditions again with a 3ft WNW swell and period of 9 seconds, but the score is only a 1, so it’s surfable but nothing special. After that, it’s clean but tiny through the end of the month – waist high or smaller, and mostly clean but too small to get excited about.

So to wrap it up: hold out for Sunday the 20th afternoon. That’s the only true standout. The rest is a long wait, but this spot tends to fire when the west swell lines up with clean wind, and this one has the makings of something decent.

Stay patient,
Rusty

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