The Wedge, Newport Beach

A wave, breaking with powerful energy, at the Wedge in Newport Beach.
Image ID: 16988
Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA

September swell at the Wedge.
Image ID: 14416
Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA

Wave breaking, tube, Newport Beach.
Image ID: 16802
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA

Wave breaking, tube, Newport Beach.
Image ID: 16803
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA

Wave breaking, tube, Newport Beach.
Image ID: 16804
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA

A large, powerful wave breaks with offshore winds at the Wedge in Newport Beach.
Image ID: 18706
Location: The Wedge, Newport Beach, California, USA

Kirk Blackman, Newport Beach.
Image ID: 16830
Location: Newport Beach, California, USA

The Wedge in Newport Beach is one of the world’s most notorious and exciting bodysurfing spots. Locals in the 70’s and 80’s developed a reputation for getting barreled in the bruising, thick wave while risking being pile-driven onto the sand if they got sucked over. Growing up in Newport in the 60s and 70s, I remember many times sirens would sound down Newport Boulevard as an ambulance raced to the Wedge to attend to some poor soul who had gone over the falls trying to impress his buds or the (quite fine) local girls, crunching bones as he returned to the beach. The old-school still bodysurfs the Wedge by virtue of a local ordinance that forbids any boards in the water between 10am and 5pm. However, these days boards rule the Wedge, working the place with bodyboards and standup. The Wedge is best on a south swell. Incoming waves reflecting off the adjacent jetty combine with the next wave to form a doubled-up triangular mutant mountain wave that pitches over thick and fast in surprisingly shallow water. The result is a big, sucking, foam-filled donut. Don’t get caught inside during a closeout set.

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