In Focus, San Diego And The Biggest Swell In History

As with any big swell event, social media starts to light up with different surfers and lensmen posting their best shots and rides of the storm and as the days go on we start to see a full picture of all the swell action. Honestly, one of my favorite uses of Instagram is bouncing around all the different accounts to see just things shaped out throughout the swell path. With such a massive swell as this, one that lit up all North and West facing beaches for thousands of miles along the Pacific Coast, it can be difficult to keep up with all that went down so here is a holiday swell recap from San Diego.

Photographer Dom Stone started out Big Sunday, December 22nd, by checking the go-to spots around North County like Swami's and Cardiff. While the lineups were packed, the swell seemed to still slowly be filling in and so he took his gear down to Blacks to see if San Diego's most notorious beach break was doing its thing. Blacks was also slow to come to life that morning but the occasional ~20+ft still reared it's head from the depths of the canyon and into the waiting arms of a few guys with their big wave guns. Overall, the morning was crowded with tons of short boarders cramming up the inside creating dangerous conditions for the real chargers that were sitting out the back.

As the week wore on and the unrelenting swells continued to deliver, surfers from Imperial Beach on up to Oceanside rejoiced as their favorite spots came to life in a way that is seldom see but a few days each year. In North County, legions of brave (or foolish) souls headed to Swami's, the right hand point break in Encinitas un-lovingly referred to as the "swamp". The easy paddle out into the channel means that Swami's often in jam-packed and crowded with seemingly clueless surfers bobbing around on the inside on way too small of boards as the more initiated surfers take their foam out the back. One local standout, pro surfer Zack Flores, can often find holes in the Swami's crowd and find unique lines on his self-shaped surfboards whether going right or left, switch or regular footed. Another local standout was Jacob Melendez who also braved the local swamp and turned heads on his sleek blue board.

While San Diego is a far cry from Hawaii or Mavericks, the southernmost region of the Golden State knows how to funnel the energy when the right swells come through (like this one) and do its best impersonation of other big wave spots. Blacks could be described as a little cousin to Puerto Escondido when the canyon sets lurch up from the depths and explode on the sandbars and unsuspecting crowd. Certain La Jolla reefs even merit the comparison to Mother Pipeline and when that happens Skip McCullough knows just when and where to be to find the ultimate ride.

After last year's run Skip said, "It may be 10 years until we get another day like this...", well, lucky for him it only took 1.