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Strong surf from Hurricane Marie begins to fade along Central Coast

Sundance Beach @SundanceBeach Santa Barbara

Stretches of Santa Barbara's South Coast were still seeing the effects of Hurricane Marie on Thursday with the storm surge expected to diminish through Thursday night.

Exposed areas are most at risk for damaging waves, like the destruction seen Wednesday on Catalina Island. The Channel Islands give the Santa Barbara coast a bit of protection, but wave sets were still being recorded between 6 to 10 feet according to the National Weather Service.

Michael Cohen is the owner of Santa Barbara Adventure Company. He and his crew teach surf lessons. He says experienced surfers know how to handle wave sets in this range, but it can be very dangerous for the novice.

"What happens is a lot of new people go out who don't have that experience and end up getting beat-up by the waves," said Cohen."You can look at them from the beach and say 'oh that doesn't look so bad' but once you swim out into them they are rather large and you want to be careful there because in addition to these big storm surges it's also got rip currents."

The San Luis Obispo County coast was seeing some effects from Marie as well with rip currents and surf in the 2 to 4 foot range expected through Friday.