Written by Scott Graves, Curry Pilot staff writer

Brookings’ Noah Bruce tames giant surf at Sporthaven Beach.
Photo by Grant Fraley

A sunny Sunday afternoon, a handful of local surfers and a solid west swell delivering  clean, overhead surf at Sporthaven Beach.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

A few bravehearted souls donned their neoprene wet suits and paddled out into the frigid, 52-degree water off the south jetty at Sporthaven Beach, performing jaw-dropping maneuvers on the 10- to 12-foot waves. And local amateur photographer Grant Fraley was there to catch it with his camera.

The Oregon Coast winter wave season stretches from October through March, often bringing surf too big for all but the most experience surfers.

The waves begin, as most waves do, as swells born on the winds of massive low-pressure systems spiraling in the northern Pacific. The cold, silent mounds of deep green water surge hundreds of miles across the ocean until they hit shallow water, rear up and expend their energy in a one-time display of watery pyrotechnics on the coast.