Swami's Swell Window
California, USA · part of the Swami's spot guide
- Swell window (from)
- 190°–300° (S–WNW)
- Best direction
- ~285° (WNW)
- Period sweet spot
- 14–20 s
- Open-ocean height (Hs)
- 2–10 ft
- Resulting faces
- 2–10 ft
Open-ocean vs. the face: the heights on buoys and forecast models are significant wave height (Hs) in deep water. What you ride is the breaking face, which depends on period, direction and this break's bathymetry — that's why the two rows above differ. PierMonkey's spot ratings already do this conversion for you.
The window runs from south-southwest through west-northwest, best on west to northwest around 270 to 300°, with the classic straight-west or west-northwest long-period pulse the money window. Period is the on-off switch: Swami’s sits inside the island-shadowed Southern California window, so it genuinely lights up only on long-period groundswell, roughly 14-to-20 seconds, that refracts around the Channel Islands and wraps into the point — short-period swell arrives weak.
Reef refraction concentrates the energy, so the breaking face runs at or above the buoy’s open-ocean height on a well-lined-up long-period west-northwest. Read the two as separate numbers.