Originally posted by: surfnole
I don't think that's an easy drive each day. Why not live near Monterey and have far less crowded surf with much closer access to breaks further south? Santa Cruz is always crowded, and it's not cheap.
Its been years, but I remember seeing just a handful of guys out along that 17 mile drive in Carmel
A friend of mine who I met on a surf trip is now in his 60s and surfed Santa Cruz his whole life. I have visited him a few times. He tells me that there are no sharks at Santa Cruz inside the kelp beds and the kelp beds keep the chop out of the waves. I can vouch for the glassy waves when the wind is blowing....but damn it is crowded. If he didn't tell me where to sit, what to line up on, who to take off on because they couldn't clear the peak, I would have never caught a wave. As it was, I only caught a few and one weekend session I didn't catch a single decent wave at 2nd peak...think that was the name near Pleasure Point.
We surfed Waddell one time, and he told me how nobody surfs there in October because all the seals give birth at a place called Ano Nuevo. It's great white season then I guess.
He told me a story about a guy suiting up an Waddell in the parking lot and saw a great white come and take a seal out of the lineup. He took his suit off and went home. Good stuff.
Perhaps the original poster can live near Watsonville, which is kind of dumpy, and be close to work and Monterey.