We had a few days of very high surf at the end of December, so we set out to look at them and I took some pictures. I will pause the Death Valley series for a month to share them. I had a similar post last January, so this might become a tradition if Mother Nature cooperates.

We went to our usual location at Dockweiler beach, parking in the lot across from the Hyperion treatment plant. Looking down the coast you could see the haze from the spray kicked up by the large breakers.

There was an offshore breeze and the wave tops look great as the wind blew the water back as they broke.

Catalina Island was visible in the distance, the notch in the island on the left is the Isthmus.

When a big wave would close out — breaks all along a wide front at one time — the air it trapped would burst out in a big plume of spray. Here is gif showing some of the action.

Here is the peak of the splash.

More photos and the rest of the sequence as single frames below the fold.

Here is a sequence of three pictures of a wave breaking.

On our way back we stopped at Playa del Rey hoping to get a shot of a wave breaking over the Marina del Rey breakwall. The waves were big, but we didn’t have the patience to wait for one to crest the breakwall.

As we left, a United flight made its way over Santa Monica Bay on the way … somehere.

And now, here is the full sequence of the air bursting out of the wave.