Santa Barbara is on the Central California coast about two hours north of Los Angeles. It’s nestled between the Pacific, facing the Channel Islands and the Santa Inez Mountains. Santa Barbara has lots of perfect points that are blocked by the Channel Islands to the south for most of the year. The area is highly affected by the seasons and really needs a nice west to northwest swell to shine. Summer and spring are the worst seasons to surf in Santa Barbara. Summers can be unforgivably flat, beaches are clogged with lots of tourists, but no one is there for the surf. There may be some surfable waves at beach breaks to the north like Jalama. As the temperatures drop, the west swells start to creep in hitting the areas pointbreaks. Santa Barbara turns from dismal to amazing in the winter. Surfers flock here in the fall and winter when breaks like the famous Rincon Point will be turning on. Traffic on the 101 slows to a crawl as the quite right points along the coast start cranking.