Waddell Creek

Surf Guide

Just south of Ano Nuevo, as the coast highway dips down to Waddell Creek, San Mateo County ends and Santa Cruz County begins at County Line, which is a favorite summer spot. There are waves all along the beach from Ano Nuevo to the first parking lot at Waddell Creek, but most people surf where there is parking. Waddell Creek is several hundred yards of reefs and beachbreaks leading up to a rivermouth, then more beachbreaks with more reefs at the north end. Waddell Creek is the workhorse spot for Santa Cruz watermen. It tends to be best in the morning before the onshore winds come up, and it can be good all day when the winds are blowing offshore. When the wind comes up, the sailboarders take over, but when it's not windy enough for them, the kite surfers are out there, going fast and getting air. Waddell Creek is open to everything and does a good job of handling it all. The reefs love a midsize west or south swell, and the beachbreaks like anything up to double-overhead, from any direction. There's nothing faux about Waddell Creek. This is an industrial-strength surf spot, which also happens to be at the mouth of one of the prettiest valleys on the coast. Catch it on a blue, offshore, head-high day in the fall, and welcome to NorCal heaven. Waddell Creek is also located up current from white shark central, and there have been a number of incidents here. Shark story number four: In the early '90s, Josh Mulcoy was paddling out at the north end of Waddell Creek when he felt something weird underneath him. "I wasn't sure if it was some weird little reef glurge or something else," Mulcoy said. "I got out of the water just in time to see a big white shark cruising in the surf line. I watched it for a while. It even nudged a bird, which flew away. I've seen two other white sharks since then, but that one flipped me out a little bit. My dad [Harbor Bill] showed up a little later, and thought we were kidding. When he saw it, he thought it was two sharks. There was that much space between its front and back fins." Shark story number five: a UCSC student named Jack Wolf was surfing the south end of Waddell Creek with a friend when a white shark molested him. He wasn't attacked, he was molested -- thrashed around but not bitten.