beachbreak

Type of wave that breaks over a sandy beach. Because beachbreak surf is dependent on sandbars, it's far more mutable and unpredictable than the surf found at pointbreaks or reefbreaks. A poststorm beachbreak sandbar might hang in there for months, or might disappear by the weekend. This ephemeral quality is alternately wonderful and frustrating. "Beachbreak waves are anything and everything," surf journalist Nick Carroll wrote. "One minute they're Pipeline, the next Indonesia, the next they'r...