Higgins Beach Surf Guide

Higgins Beach Surf Guide

From Higgins Beach's rocky ledge outcropping at its southwestern end, to the shallow waters of the Spurwink Rivermouth in the northwest, tide fluctuations here average more than 10 feet each day, and a shifty, gradually sloping, but uneven sandy bottom ensure that every session is a challenge. Higgins' claim to fame is its uncanny ability to hold macking, overhead-plus swells. In fact, it handles 17-second-period, double-overhead groundswells as well as many other, more popular points around the world -- but without a channel for safe passage. Its major flaw is its tide dependence. Sandwiched between the rare days when everything seems to work are long, flat spells, numerous gutless windswells and countless days when the wind is sideshore and every wave is either section-like or just plain closed-out. Heaven, for this southeast-facing beach, is a swell made in the Caribbean that works its way slowly up the slot midway between the Outer Banks and Bermuda, and doesn't turn until it's just south of Cape Cod.