Big Wednesday at the beach
By John
Davis
On the Winter Solstice huge
swells marched forth and pounded Venice Beach with one elephantine set after
another. One super wave swept over the top of the Venice Pier tearing the
concrete bathroom off it’s foundation, then tumbling it into the ocean
about fifty feet below.
The swell is a train of waves caused by an
ocean storm. If you blow on the surface of still water waves move outward in a
circle in the same way. Caused by a storm 1,000 miles to sea and North West of
Venice, winds churned the water sending leading edge surges at local beaches.
The orbit of the moon around the earth
is not a perfect circle. She gets closer to earth sometimes. When this happens
the gravitational force from the moon tugs on the ocean surface and warps it
upward. This is high tide.
When storm
swells combine with a super high tide the sea grows. As swells reach the beach
friction from the shallow bottom causes them to get much bigger. Arriving shore
waves can be very large. Scary large. Along Venice Beach the type of wave that
forms is called a plunging breaker. A massive wall of water will form and hold
its shape for a while before the whole thing suddenly crashes over itself into a
thundering torrent of foam, sand, and sometimes surfers. These are dangerous
waves.
There were severe cross
currents that kept most Venice surfers onshore agonizing about not conquering
the biggest waves most have seen here. On that day you could see walls of water
forming almost a mile offshore where the ocean floor rises from two thousand
feet to about forty. One innovative surfer along the coast had a jet ski drag
him out to surf some of the massive offshore breaks nobody else could reach.
Several rescues occurred near shore and of
boaters.
The weather was around eighty
degrees and it was clear. Like a grand fiesta, families and dogs came out to
picnic and see the unusual spectacle. News crews were everywhere, even the
national crews. Lifeguards were on their mark while the County scrambled to
erect protective sand berms to stop waves from sweeping over the bike path into
the handball courts again, or
worse.
Then an ominous warning from the
LAPD was distributed by email, the worst was yet to come. The most dangerous
high tide would be on Christmas morning. The report indicated evacuation routes
were being planned and severe flooding was possible.
“Voluntary evacuations,”
were alluded to. But Venice survived and the waves kept their manners.
Venice surfers now call it “Big
Wednesday” in homage to the famous surfer movie of that name; only it was
real this time.
Posted: Wed - January 4, 2006 at 06:27 PM