Turtle Cove Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Well, I’ve had a good look at the charts for Turtle Cove, and to be honest, it’s a pretty quiet run ahead. We’re looking at a long stretch of small, weak conditions for the next couple of weeks. Turtle Cove (reef and point) is exposed to the swell but with the optimum direction coming from the SE and the swell tending to be small or from the wrong angles, it’s going to be a waiting game.

Right now, it starts off sluggish. Thursday the 3rd has some small 2ft swell from the SE with a period of 9 seconds but a moderate 12 mph cross-off breeze is making it clean but tiny – combined energy is only 136 (moderate energy). Definitely nothing to get excited about. Friday the 4th sees even smaller 1ft swell and some heavy rain, with light onshore wind making it messy.

We have a bit of a gap here – from Thursday the 3rd right through to the morning of Sunday the 6th, it’s all scoring zero. The surf is just poor. There’s practically nothing surfable. Sunday afternoon the 6th is the first little blip worth mentioning – a 4ft swell from the ENE but with a short period of only 5 seconds. The wind goes glassy (WNW 3 mph) so the surface will be perfect, but the wave quality from such a short period swell will be very ordinary. The combined energy sits at 119 (moderate). It’s a “surfable but ordinary” call.

After that, it goes back to flat and small again through most of the next week. Monday the 7th has some 2ft swell from the E with a longer 11-second period, but a cross-on breeze kills it. Tuesday the 8th has offshore wind but the swell is only 1ft – clean but tiny.

Then we get another little pulse on Thursday the 10th. We see 5ft swell from the SSW with a short 7-second period. The wind is howling offshore from the W at 19 mph, making it clean but this is a short-period windswell. Combined energy is 185 (moderate). Still, that offshore wind will shave the surface glassy, so if you’re an experienced surfer who can handle a bit of a bump, you might get a few. For beginners, that 5ft is on the edge but doable, though the short period means it’ll be a bit fat.

From there, it’s a dead run again. There’s a long gap from the 10th of September all the way to the 16th – nearly a week of poor surf or tiny 1-2ft swells. The one bright spot is on Tuesday afternoon the 15th and Wednesday morning the 16th, where 2ft from the ESE with a 9-second period and clean conditions (light to gentle cross-off breeze) gives us “surfable but ordinary” conditions. Combined energy is only 61 and 53 (weak). It’s clean but tiny.

The very last day we have, Friday the 18th of September, shows a push of 5ft from the ENE with a 5-second period again but rain showers and a light cross-on wind. Combined energy hits 125 (moderate), but that short period and rain is not ideal.

Honestly, the standouts here are few and far between. If I had to pick the best on offer, it’d be Sunday afternoon the 6th for the glassy surface but poor wave shape, or Thursday the 10th for the strongest swell and offshore wind – but that’s a short-period affair. For a point break like Turtle Cove, you want that longer period groundswell from the SE to wrap in, but we just don’t get it. Water temps are about average for this time of year, nothing wild. Crowds at Turtle Cove are sometimes an issue, but with surf this poor, it’ll be quiet.

So, a long, flat winter stretch. Not much to write home about. Forecasts can always change, but for now, it’s a wait.

Rusty.

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