It’s a summer bummer we’ve heard all season long: High tides, high surf, precarious ocean conditions and strong riptides. The unwelcome combo of super high surf, unusually high tide and little sand is a joy to some, a drag to others.
Surfers, including locals and visitors from far and wide, have descended on Surfrider Beach for conditions that have been a joy to experienced surfers.
“It’s been wild,” longtime resident and surfer Duane King told The Malibu Times. As for the lack of sand, “it’s seasonal,” he said. “The high tide and high surf come in and wash away the sand. It always comes back but I haven’t seen it [gone] this long for years.”
The sand this year has been skimpy, to say the least. Normally, Independence Day on La Costa Beach means parties, dogs, fireworks and festivities. But this year, there was no sand to celebrate and residents found themselves hanging on their decks or in the community carport.
While surfers may rejoice, it’s been a drag for divers.
“High surf and high waves make our job harder,” Karalyn Ramon, a dive master at Malibu Divers, said. “All that bashing on your beach churns up the sand and makes for low vis[ability].”
The conditions have made it equally difficult for swimmers, who were warned on daily newscasts of dangerous riptides. Swimmers were versed on how to escape riptides and advised to swim only near a lifeguard station.
“We’ve had things like hurricanes and tropical storms which have contributed,” Ramon said. “This has been unusual for us, and obviously weather patterns have been changing.”
Churned-up water has made a murky mess for divers. So what is responsible for the weeks-long high tides, high surf, roaring rip currents and little to no sand? Former Malibu mayor and surf shop owner Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner may have an answer.
“The water is warm,” he said, explaining that last storm came in from the South Pacific. “It was a ‘southern hemi,’ which generates warm waters and warm conditions. So it came in all the way from Bora Bora, all those little areas down there.”
As a surf shop owner Wagner was pleased, but recognized the greater problem.
“We had 10 days of focused waves right on Malibu, which is terrific for surfing, but there is no sand in between,” Wagner said. He added that the sand depletion moves south — the sand from Broad Beach moves down to Surfrider, sand from La Costa migrates down to Topanga and it often ends up at the Santa Monica Pier.
“I think it’s part of a changing climate,” Wagner said. “I think common sense would tell you there are changes we are not accustomed to.”
Adding to the problem is a lack of upstream nutrients from the Santa Clarita River Basin, Wagner described. When you cover up a riverbed, which supports the sand, the sand migrates and keeps moving farther south.
“We need to make people aware that this sand gravel has to come down to the beach and replenish the sand,” Wagner explained. “Basically, we need to educate people.
“They need to know that they have to make some of this sand gravel to come down to the beach to replenish what we lose,” he added.
In the meantime, Malibu could see more of the same, as tropical storms are predicted to show up off Baja California in Mexico. Wagner said he hasn’t seen anything like this sand phenomenon for years. It might shape up to be an unusual summer, and in the meantime, he said, “Pray for sand.”