Catching the Big Wave Online

By Riley Thorning
Menlo Oak Staff


Paddy Dune is one of just a handful of surfers who attend Menlo College. When Dune wants to know about surfing conditions, he knows there is just one place to go, surfline.com.
 

“I love using Surfline, “ Dunne said. “I currently don’t live near the beach and can’t access the funds to pay for gas every day, so I browse my favorite location with my premium member account and watch the HD cameras for the right spot to go to.”

Surfline.com is one of the most popular websites in the world for surf reports, surf news, new surf gear and much more. The website is open to anyone who wants to browse the surf archive for information, and also has a for-pay premium membership for those who are interested in HD cameras on their favorite surf spots. What separates Surfline from other surf sites is its HD cameras. Surfline has high-def cameras on all the best beaches in the world.  The photos provide the online viewer with, as Surfline’s motto states,  a “know before you go” feeling. 

Big wave at Half Moon Bay
Photo by Nikki Brooks

The Menlo surf community  uses surfline.com because the closet beach is in Half Moon Bay,  which is at least a  30-minute drive  from campus. Knowing  your surf spot has the right conditions to make the trip worthwhile is one of the reasons Surfline is so popular.

Surfline reports are made by some of the best surf forecasters in the world,  In Surfline’s travel guide section, readers can search any surf spot such as Jeffery’s Bay in Australia. This section gives the information needed to jump in the water surf and get out safely. A picture is displayed of the wave on its best day followed by a full on guide with everything from; directions to get there, shark warning, best tide to surf and key information about the surf. Although this guide can provide much needed information to explore new spots to understand the language the writers communicate in one must be of an intermediate level of surfing. Any adventure to a new spot surfers are going to hit it is key to read about and understand the dynamics of the break.

Surfline.com is popular according to Alexa.com. The website is the 1,306 most popular site in the United States. Males from the ages 18-35 are most likely to view Surfline at their place of work, according to Alexa.com.

Surfline is updated daily, provides information on all competitions and updates on big upcoming swells. With all the popular surf archive locked into website and available HD cameras there is no way to be an avid surfer and not be a surfline.com fan.