Surfing in San Francisco

A portfolio about surfing in the Bay Area

Motto : Be Patient !

Surfing in San Francisco can be deceiving. I remember when I moved here from France about 5 years ago, I was pretty much expecting perfect A frame, Off Shore every day. When I moved here in January, it took me some time to settle in. I got all my shit together probably in late march, when I was finally ready to explore… One issue though, I took me about 6 months to see the coast of the bay area not fully blown out.  If you want to surf in the northern part of the Bay Area, you have to be patient.

Surfing at Ocean Beach

Ocean Beach is the main and largest beach of San Francisco that stretches for 3 miles on the western Edge of San Francisco.  Ocean Beach is famous for fishing or picnicking (there are 16 fire pits distributed along on the Northern side of the beach (between the the bottom of the Cliffhouse and Lincoln Avenue).

OB is also famous for its waves.  William Finnegan wrote a lot about it in Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Barbarian Day”. Ocean Beach is a super challenging waves for many reasons : the wind blows on shore pretty much 9 months a year, the rip and current can be really strong, and the paddle out, extremely difficult, especially during the bigger day.

Getting a really good day at Ocean Beach is relatively rare, but when the beach is firing, you can expect to find something between Puerto Escondido and Hossegor.
Here a selection of pictures I took over my last 5 years in San Francisco

Surfing San Francisco
The end of a perfect Day at OB - November 2015
Surfing Ocean Beach at Sunset during in December 2016
Low light and late Take off - December 2016
Ocean Beach, Noriega Street
Big Day at Ocean Beach - December 2016

Smaller day at Ocean Beach – November 2015

Perfect wave at Ocean Beach SF

Clean-up Set – Purchase a print

Surfing San Francisco OB
Lewis Samuel (?) on a good day at Ocean Beach
Big sur California
When San Francisco looks like Puerto Escondido
Noriega St, Ocean Beach
Moody morning at Noriega
Morning at Ocean Beach

Clean and off shore day at Ocean beach, with Marin Headland on the background

Fort Point and the rest of the Bay Area

Surfing in the bay Area

Northern San Francisco

There are a couple of spots just North of San Francisco. On the Northern cost of SF, there is the famous Fort Point, right under the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Surfing at Fort point

Fort Point, with the right tide, swell and wind can be a really good waves. It’s not easy to catch it as good as that though.

Baker beach wave Golden gate bridge

Baker Beach is a Shore Break located right at the Fort Point. It’s a good spot for bodysurfing.

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