Santa Cruz Slammed as California Coast Experiences Heavy Surf
Unless you’ve been on a media detox, you’ll have heard the news of heavy surf slamming the California coast, and washing away the Santa Cruz Wharf on Monday. A major storm in the Pacific Northwest is said to have fueled the extreme wave action, believed to be 20-30 feet, and swells reportedly over 50 feet.
This video posted on the @ktvu2 Instagram page shows the Santa Cruz Wharf as a pile of floating debris. Three people were stranded on the remains. All made it safely ashore.
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A day later, Sam Forbes-Roberts was out doing some last-minute Christmas shopping when he learned the cleat holding his 46-ft trawler on the dock had been ripped away. He rushed back and spent the next 12 or so hours keeping his boat afloat, tied between five pilings. “I spent the night retying on the pilings with the tide.” Sam described the water as rushing through every 10-15 minutes with maybe 10 feet between the waves. Some would reach the wall at the end of the harbor and rush back out to sea, adding to the turmoil and destruction.
“It was like watching an accordion,” Sam told us. Whereas the clinking sound of swaying masts can be pleasant, he says, “The cacophony of masts bashing together, fiberglass crunching … that sound will stay with me.
While Sam was securing his boat, his girlfriend Meghan Robinson took this video of one of the surges coming into the harbor:
“There are pilings sticking up everywhere, boats upside down. A lot of debris,” he adds. And although the sun was shining as we spoke, Sam said there was more to come. He was therefore making some repairs and readying his boat to move down to Moss Landing, where he said he would be better protected.
The waves and surge in Santa Cruz Harbor have left many of the harbor’s liveaboard community in difficulties; their homes are now either sunk, damaged, or inaccessible. “I feel fortunate,” Sam says. He has the means to adjust and continue. Others have nowhere to go, he adds.
This video shared by @thequalifiedcaptain captures the waves and swell washing through Santa Cruz Harbor, leaving a trail of destruction.
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News sites and social media are awash with videos such as the one above: docks being lifted, boats being tossed like toys in a bathtub, and a number of sunken vessels. A local mariner, Oliver, says he witnessed two 10- to 15-ft sailboats being capsized by the forceful wave that tore through the docks. “It was crazy, people yelling, ‘The surge is coming,’ the docks lifting. At least two docks are shut down,” he told us. And although the ocean has settled down since its peak earlier this week, Oliver says it’s still “pretty aggressive.”
The National Weather Service advises: “Large breaking waves of 20 to 30 feet” will continue to reach the coast from Point Reyes to Big Sur through early Sunday morning. Beaches farther south to Santa Barbara are forecast to experience waves of “10 to 15 feet lowering to 8 to 11 feet Sunday afternoon and continuing into Monday night.” The high-surf advisory remains in effect until 3:00 a.m. next Tuesday.
I was fortunate enough to stay for a couple of nights at the Santa Cruz Yacht Club in the fall of 2023. They were very kind. Even in benign weather, you could see and feel the swell entering the marina. This video is also reminiscent of the 2011 tsunami that did major damage there. It might be a questionable place to keep a boat.
I thought the first post I saw was just typical Facebook stuff. And your use of the term “surge” is spot on; Well beyond “surf” and waves. This is one for the record books. The tsunami in 2011 made sense, this seems different. Thank you for the information.
Has major surge in the SC Harbor always been a “thing”, or are there any manmade things that changed to let this swell in? Not referring to global warming….
This is not a harbor to keep an expensive boat in, in the winter. Sold my boat last year. Had a 29 foot Cascade for 48 years and 20,000 ocean miles. No sinkings no fires no accidents. Some luck, some being proactive, some fear.
We were there for the Tsunamis. Isn’t about time a more protected entrance was installed. When the entrance is a direct shot why wouldn’t you expect this ? A seawall extension , with offset would limit the effect.
This harbor was placed incorrectly in 1964 against advice of long time mariners then.
Army Corp of engineers ignored advice. Thus silting and exposure.
I can only imagine the feeling of helplessness of watching your boat get pounded to pieces at the dock.