Today the waves from Hurricane Earl, which got within 372 statute miles of Palm Bay Florida, were nearly twice the size as reported yesterday. Hitting the beach at around 7:15 this morning the waves were much less choppy and about 6 feet with outside sets around 7 to 8 feet. It was a bit hard to tell just how big the surf was because almost no one was out and the beach was nearly deserted.
There are some surf reports of places in Satellite Beach seeing up to 15′ faces, but I didn’t drive up there to check it out. I was pretty surprised to see that there was hardly anyone out taking advantage of the great waves this morning since there was very little chop and a nice offshore wind producing a little back spray early this morning. I’m sure that will change later in the day. There were plenty of people standing on the boardwalk watching the big waves come in, but there was hardly anyone out surfing.
Waiting To Hit The Surf
The shore break and frequency of sets coming in was pretty intense, so there may be a few people who were having trouble getting through the foam and breaking waves to the outside.
I took 188 pictures of the waves with a cheap point a shoot digital camera and the sun was almost directly in front of me so most of the pics are pretty washed out, but I was able to tweak them a bit in Photoshop. Only a few are good enough to publish so check them out below. Of course there’s the obligatory photo with a bird scurrying around on the beach, but that’s just the nature of what’s usually happening on a deserted shoreline.
Enjoy the pics.
