Jetty East:
Jetty East Condos is the Destin area’s premier big-wave spot. It breaks best in winter when the winds are out of the northwest after a passing cold front. Follow Holiday Isle’s beach road to the abrupt right curve, and look for Sandpiper Cove condos. A half-mile past Sandpiper Cove, look for the long boardwalk on the left. Parking is the biggest problem on Holiday Isle. Your best bet is to park your car across the street at the beach boardwalk on the left, a quarter-mile before the Jetty East Condos, and walk. Jetty East has been surfed mostly in the 6 to 8-foot range, and on rare occasions it can climb to 10 feet. On the big days, you walk down toward the east jetty to paddle out. There’s a channel between the jetty and where the biggest waves break. After drifting east, and catching the waves, you go in and walk back up the beach.
Two By Fours:
This break is similar to Jetty East, only farther east. It’s an outside break and accessible on big days by either drifting down from Jetty East, or getting lucky on the paddle out. On a medium-size, outside day, it’s a great outside peak. To get there, follow the beach road to the abrupt right curve. Look for Sandpiper Cove condos. A half-mile past Sandpiper Cove, look for the long boardwalk on the left and park across the street.
The Pumphouse:
The Pumphouse is located midway between Sandpiper Cove and Two by Fours, where a pipe flushes the Destin Harbor with clean Gulf water. Look for the low block building on the right after you pass Sandpiper Cove, and park along the road. When you get to the beach, you’ll hopefully see a buoy marking where the outflow is. Otherwise, it’s opposite the Pumphouse, about 250 yards out. It’s mostly a winter wave with a big outside and hollow inside.
HMO’s:
The name has nothing to do with your medical provider; it stands for “half-mile out,” and it is the mysto cloudbreak of Destin. To get there, follow the beach road west, almost to the end. Look for the boat docks on the right and surfers’ cars parked along the road. Walk south along the pass to the east jetty, and paddle out. On big days, the right-hander can be a spectacularly large, winding point wave that breaks on a shallow sandbar far outside of the east jetty of Destin Pass. The problem with surfing there is that the Destin Pass has one of the fastest tidal flows anywhere. Peak incoming or outgoing tides are like a river, and if you catch it wrong and get sucked out, plan on paddling six miles out. The beginning of an outgoing tide or slack tide works best, but a Jet Ski and an anchor might be the only true answer to a leisurely surf out there.
NCO Club:
When nowhere else is breaking, which is often, NCO will have a decent wave. Follow Highway 98 east toward Destin, turn into the parking lot right before Destin bridge and look for surfers’ cars and the sign saying NCO Beach Club. From the west, head through Destin; it’s just over the Destin bridge on the left. Look for the building on the beach with 60 or so surf-friendly vehicles.
Because it’s only about a mile from Destin’s west jetty, NCO gets swell without the degree of drift that other beaches have, and there are waves all the way from the west jetty to the beach club. On medium to large days, most surfers walk toward the jetty, about halfway, and surf all the way down to the club, then walk back. The wave closest to the jetty is an unpredictable, shifty, twisting peak. About midway between the jetty and the club is a long, fast midbreak that’s great on summer days. Out in front of NCO, the best midbreak produces a long, slower wall that’s sometimes hollow on the inside.