To tell DCs there will be some surf at West Wittering beach? Or go elsewhere?

[crazyhorsethethird]

We live in SW London and are planning a day-trip to the beach tomorrow (Sunday). We've enjoyed West Wittering in the past but I can't remember if it has any surf and now the boys are older (12 and 9) and have had a few holidays in Cornwall they will be disappointed if they can't use their body boards. It doesn't have to be huge surf - just enough to be fun.

Do I need to manage their expectations? We're likely to arrive an hour after high tide and the wind direction will be NNE/NE, speed about 7.

Is there another beach within a couple of hours of SW London that is more likely to have a few waves?

The witterings are lovely but leave early to avoid summer traffic! I would manage expectations for surf, maybe some, but I can't remember it being worthy of body boards when I last went. Bournemouth / Poole or further that way maybe better

beware of the witterings on a nice day. it will take you hours to get out of there.

We were there last week and there were people with body boards and some of those kite surfing things too.

Lots o surf at witterings yesterday they have a flagged of area for surfing and body boards

It's as flat as a pancake and very little surf, just gentle rolling waves. The traffic is a major issue. We went a couple of weeks ago, arrived about 8.30am and no traffic to speak of. Left at 11.30 and drove past several miles of queueing cars, this is normal for summer weekends.

x-posted, maybe we've just always had calm days, never seen much surf there.

I've never seen much surf at Witterings either. We've given up going there due to crowds and traffic, we usually head to Hayling Island and walk along the beach to get away from everyone (antisocial aren't we?) Hayling is beautiful when the tide is out, you can walk for miles along the sand banks. But not much surf really.

Just a bit further along from Witterings is Brackleshom (sp ) beach which is good for waves but is a pebble beach - I would imagine it depends on the wind speed for the day!

I'd go to Camber Sands. Much bigger/longer sandy beach so even if busy far less crowded than Witterings always is in height of season and there should be surf as I'm always seeing kitesurfing going on there and there is a surf shop.

If you are going to w wittering tomorrow I'd leave at the crack of dawn and plan to be there until late evening.Only way to avoid horrendous traffic

We went about a month ago and got there at 8AM. By 9 the car park was pretty full. There were some people with the boards but it was quite windy that day.