This is just a tiny bit of the estimated 3000 people watching the body surfers battle the waves while we were there. You can see the swell breaking on the far jetty - that is the south portion of the entrance channel to Newport Bay and Balboa Island. The people are standing along the beginning of the jetty on the north side of the entrance channel.
The "Wedge" gets it's name from the way the swells break on the shore. The swells come in at an angle to both the beach and the north jetty of the entrance channel. The swell reflects off of the jetty and then breaks across the swell hitting the beach. The combination of the reflected swell adds to the swell heading toward the beach and it can grow to almost twice the normal height. You can see part of the reflected swell cutting across the normal swell in this pic.
