Donkey Patrol | Surfing Travel | Surf Resort | Kandui Mentawai Islands Indonesia | San Diego

This is probably what Smythe looked like while looking at the forecast and thought he could’t go because of the donkey contest….

For those that don’t know, Smythe and Stefan are in the northern Guanacaste region of Costa Rica right now. They pulled the trigger on a last minute strike to go catch some surf. Their plan, last I heard it, was to stay up in north around Tamarindo and Playas Del Coco and make a multitude of strikes to Witches Rock , Ollies, and my favorite, “The Labyrinth”. At first glance the forecast for all of Costa Rica looks great for today and the remainder of the weekend…. check it out.

“SSW groundswell (~195-205) will peak going into the second half of the week and hold fairly steady on Friday before slowly fading this weekend. Thursday sees exposed spots go head high to several feet overhead off the Southern Hemi swell, as a solid dose of SW windswell joins in for more size. However, steady SW winds, along with heavy rain, will prevail for mainly choppy condition. On Friday, SW windswell backs down as the SSW groundswell holds, still head-overhead surf on tap with improving conditions. Saturday morning will see fading SSW energy and clean surf in the 4-5′+ range.

Further out; a new S groundswell (185-190) fills in on Sunday and into early next week with some fun waves in the waist-chest-shoulder high plus range.”

But herein lies the problem: the Guanacaste peninsula is shaped like a boot, and Ollies and Witches are up by the heel. The bottom of the boot takes a direct hit from this steep south, but the upper part of the boot just gets the scraps of the swell, almost nothing.

The only way for them to have known this is if they read beyond the basic forecast, and looked at the lola model and the surf spot forecasts;

I sent them both an email to this effect, but I think my efforts were too late, my email went out after their departure. Here is my email.

“you guys need to look at the surf spot forecasts and the lola nearshore swell tracking models..
It looks like northern costa is going to be completely blocked from the swell.. Tamarino / Ollies are going to be getting scraps..
Central and South Guanacaste will be getting the juice and are not in a swell blocked area. “

So here is my question to the other donkeys:

I just checked the updated forecast, and it looks like the swell for next weekend is good enough to run the event however the swell direction is very steep and a majority of the swell will march right past san diego and hit in north orange county.

That being said, the forecast is also predicting a significant amount of consecutive swells for June 7th with a much better swell direction for northern san diego. I think we may have to wait until later in the week this week to make an official call. We will need to see how the steep swell is hitting the event site and what the weather/wind forecast looks like.

“Further out; a better and fun size S swell (180-185) looks to move in at the end of the upcoming week and top out over the weekend before slowly fading into early June. This is looking good for 2-4’ surf at the better exposed breaks, with possible larger sets at standouts (again North OC). Stay tuned as we continue to track this swell.

Beyond that, long range models indicate a return to a more cyclonically active western South Pacific; starting with a strong storm that is soon to develop deep in the South Hemi over the next 48hrs. If forecast charts hold true, then we could see a good run of SW groundswell starting around the 4th-5th of June and continuing for several days after. Keep checking back for updates.”

Who says Donkeys can’t swim…..

At the “Viper’s” house

2894 woodridge circle
carlsbad,ca 92008

bringing wine is encouraged.

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