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Heads up: Birch Bay
allipp01
07/29/16 #19760
It is looking like Birch Bay will be very good tomorrow morning. All the buoy sites in the Georgia Strait are showing winds in the 40 mph range all night, with local winds at Birch Bay being in the teens. This allows for a good ground swell and some nice chop to steepen things up.
I'll post tomorrow morning when I see the updated forecasts and wind conditions. Low tide is in the morning so it may be a bit of a walk out to the water, but well worth it!
allipp01
07/30/16 #19762
Conditions are looking great this morning! I'll probably head up there to do laps around 8:30 or so. It looks like it will hold NW winds until late morning, then swing around to the west.
For those of you that gladly drive 5 plus hours to the Gorge, yet say the 30 minutes drive to Birch Bay is too long, I can only shake my head!
ddt542@…
07/30/16 #19763
Out my window I see some good looking white caps with wind from the NW.
WooHoo!
Denise
allipp01
07/30/16 #19764
For anyone interested in ocean racing, I highly recommend Birch Bay when there is a strong NW component. The long fetch rolling swells, not very steep, but moving at a fast speed, combining with the local wind swells coming in steeper and at a slight off angle to the ground swells really mimic what you'll find in the open ocean. Great practice, and you really need to work the small local stuff if you want to get into the bigger swells.
Here's Dennis M., the only guy that heeded my suggestion and showed up!
Reivers Dustin
07/30/16 #19765
What's your drill? You put in at Birch Bay State Park at the parking lot, then paddle out past the flats towards Pt. Roberts? How far out to get into stuff? Do you run back to the park and do loops?
For me it's about 40 min one way. I've gone up a few times and been skunked. Seems like the good stuff is any swell generated out of Straights of Georgia so you can't just look at wind. If it's a souther, then there is a famous gnarly patch that develops around Pt Roberts, (not rideable, heavy chop, a bitch to work your way clear of.)
rd
allipp01
07/31/16 #19767
As long as there is a NW component and it's blowing hard up in Canada it will be good provided there is a bit of wind in Birch Bay. Usually about 10-15 mph local winds are best because then it's real easy to paddle into, but the rides are good! Waves start as soon as you get off the beach…..provided you can make it off the beach, ask Larry B about that one!
