South Oceanside is about 2 miles of mostly open beach break that stretches from Oceanside pier down toward the Carlsbad city limits.
The surf is like most of the beach breaks in Southern California and it depends a lot on what type of swell we have in the water. It closes out around head high on bigger S-SW swells and at about the same size on bigger winter swells. Occasionally you get some shifting sandbars moving down the beach that sets up a little better shape.
Again, like most of Oceanside, it does the best on the combo swells. What is nice though, is that when it gets good you can surf pretty much anywhere along the stretch and score similar waves. So if you don’t like the crowd at that peak…and the longboarders on the next section keep burning you…and the knee boarders are pissing you off because they keep getting sick little but deep barrels…then you just move down the beach and surf pretty much the same wave with less people.
Spot details:Best swell direction: S through WNW (180-285), but it really like the combo swells.
Best Wind: NE through E winds or light and variable winds
Sea Floor: Sand
Best Season: Mostly Fall and Spring but can get good anytime you have a mix of swells.
Crowds: Not bad most of the year…but they do get heavy in the summer. Weekends in the summer are probably the worst that it gets.
