The first two weeks of October were mostly summer surf conditions. Waves two to three feet, except on October 10-13 when we got a taste of the larger swells from a western Pacific storm which brought seven to nine foot waves. With a high tide, the beach overnight went from smooth sloping to a sandy “grand canyon.”

Erosion was thirty inches to three feet at the mean high tide mark. The beach was inundated with water back two hundred yards from the shoreline leaving a hundred yards or less of dry sand in front of the dunes.

As the “large sets” crashed in, swirling foam and bubbling white water left the lifeguard towers in the middle of a large shallow lake. The larger sets on Saturday, October 10th, were under a heavy fog bank making photography impossible.

Todd Gailey on a “set wave” in the fog

The following photos are surfers that enjoyed Estero Bay in the first two weeks of October.

Keep a leash on it, Bob