Officials advise caution as large waves pound Central Coast

Large waves made their way to the Central Coast on Monday. The National Weather Service reported waves could reach up to 30 feet.

In Morro Bay, people stopped by Morro Rock to watch the high surf. Some dare devils ventured in the waters.

“Definitely not for beginners,” said surfer Kyle Schieffer, “Currents are really strong.”

Schieffer said he was only in the ocean for about an hour.

Others cruised in a jet ski, or kayaked. Coast Guard officials said they up their staffing when there are high surf warnings.

“When the weather gets up like this, we have to have two ready boats,” explained E xecutive Petty Officer, Kacy Jones. “We can only respond with two boats, a safety back up boat. So we’ll have at least four people in each boat, sometimes five just to play it a little safer. So we do have to surge our staffing a little bit.”

Jones said the Coast Guard received a call about a distressed surfer at Port San Luis earlier on Monday.

“By the time we got ready to respond, they’d made it out of the water on their own. We get a lot of those calls. Always err on the side of caution when the weather picks up like this.”

High surf warnings are in effect until Tuesday morning along the Central Coast.

Health officials advise avoiding ocean water during and after rain storms.

Storm runoff is known to bring high levels of disease.