The Wedge

The Wedge is a surf spot located at the extreme east end of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. When supplied with a south swell of the proper size and direction, it can produce shorebreak waves as spectacular, challenging, intimidating, dangerous, - and worthy of cautious respect - as any in Hawaii, Tahiti, or Australia.

These enormous waves are a by-product of improvements to the groins at the Newport Harbor entrance undertaken during the 1930s. As an incoming wave approaches from outside, it washes up against the groin and washes back down, causing a "side wave" that connects with another incoming wave to form a peak. A waterperson in peak physical condition, with an awful lot of experience bodysurfing, bodyboarding, or kneeboarding here, is promised a short, but very fast and exciting, ride.

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The Wedge is also the title of an unrelated 1944 poem by William Carlos Williams.