An extra good Friday swell looming for Bells comp

GET ready for the Rip Curl Pro to kick off either later today or first thing tomorrow morning, depending on when this good looking swell moves into our swell window.

The good news about this pending swell is that its timely arrival should deliver great surf right through Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

For crowds and non-stop action, that is excellent news and I’m expecting surf up to six to eight feet maybe tomorrow afternoon and maintain decent size right through the Easter long weekend.

Now that we think we know the conditions, can we predict the winner?

Surfing is super unpredictable — gone are the days when one or two surfers dominated year in year out.

This year’s field across men’s and women’s is super talented and any one of 10 men and probably five women can win.

So to make it a little challenging I’ll step out with what might be three excellent selections.

In the men’s, Filipe Toledo always looks super sharp at Bells and he should be coming into his prime years.

Jordy Smith has been coming and enjoying Bells for close to 15 years and John John Florence looks to me like he really has worked out this wave.

In the women’s, let’s embrace Lakey Peterson as our own now she is engaged to a local surfer and Lakey is certainly suited to the long Bells walls, while Sally Fitzgibbons and Tyler Wright have surfed Bells that much through their careers.

They’ll be certainly looking for big results.

Four-day forecast: It’s great swell arriving either this afternoon or this evening and then maintaining moderate right through to Monday, with good winds most morning. The reefs should be firing right along the coast.