When the Wedge in Newport Beach, California creeps into the 10-to-15-foot range it’s pretty solid stuff. Granted, any wave face in that range is the real deal, but the Wedge is in a weight class of its own when we’re talk about slabby, refracting, doubled-up waves that defy the mechanics of your everyday surfing experience.
Welp, she turned on this past weekend with the arrival of the first legitimate south swell of this new season — big enough that local filmmaker and videographer Brent Weldon says it was “the biggest waves in years” at the famous Newport Beach disaster zone.
“We’re talking massive 10- to 15-foot waves rolling in with nonstop power and intensity. These were some of the biggest waves we’ve seen in a while — thick, heavy, and absolutely pounding the shore,” he says.
Weldon spent enough time documenting the opening-day action — at least what will qualify as opening day for this new season — that he came home with a solid 30 minutes of footage to highlight the session. While he’s often in the water with his camera, he spent this day on the sand. In another clip shared to social media early Saturday, the pulled-back perspective from the beach shined a whole new light on how much power and size was firing into that little nook where the Balboa Peninsula meets the Newport Harbor Jetty.
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