Live surf cams, one per spot
13 streams across 8 states, each embedded only because its operator cleared it. The operator is named on every one, and the date below is when that permission was last verified — not when we first found the stream.
Permissions last verified August 19, 2026
The 13 cams we embed
| Spot | State | Operator | Permission checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banzai Pipeline Oahu North Shore | Hawaii | Explore Big Surf, Beaches and Sunsets | August 19, 2026 |
| Carolina Beach New Hanover County | North Carolina | Tony Silvagni Surf School | August 19, 2026 |
| Cayucos San Luis Obispo County | California | 805 Webcams | August 19, 2026 |
| Galveston Gulf Coast | Texas | ABC13 Houston | August 19, 2026 |
| Higgins Beach Casco Bay | Maine | Higgins Beach | August 19, 2026 |
| Huntington Beach Orange County | California | The Surfers View | August 13, 2026 |
| Malibu (Surfrider) Los Angeles County | California | LA Times Studios | August 19, 2026 |
| Manasquan Monmouth County | New Jersey | The Surfers View | August 13, 2026 |
| Morro Bay San Luis Obispo County | California | 805 Webcams | August 19, 2026 |
| Nahant North Shore | Massachusetts | Ocean House Surf & Skate | August 19, 2026 |
| Pismo Beach San Luis Obispo County | California | 805 Webcams | August 19, 2026 |
| St. Augustine Northeast Florida | Florida | SurfStationCam | August 19, 2026 |
| Waikiki Oahu South Shore | Hawaii | EarthCam | August 13, 2026 |
Each link opens the spot report with the cam in place. Nothing loads from the operator until you press play — see how that is handled.
Why 62 spots have no cam
We run no cameras. A cam appears here when someone else points a public camera at that beach and allows the stream to be embedded — two conditions, and most beaches fail the first one. Where a stream exists but the owner has switched embedding off, the spot stays without a cam; framing it anyway would be taking something that was withheld on purpose.
Those 62 pages still carry the full report: buoy wave height and period, WaveWatch III forecast, water temperature, tides and the rip current risk. A missing cam removes the picture, not the numbers. If you operate a beach camera and would like it listed, the contact page is the way in — we credit and link back on every embed.
Questions
- Why do only some spots have a cam?
- We operate no cameras of our own and embed a stream only where the operator has cleared it. For 62 of our 75 spots no such stream exists — either nobody points a public camera at that beach, or the owner has switched embedding off. Those pages carry the report without a cam rather than a link to someone else's paywall.
- How is permission checked?
- For a YouTube stream the channel owner controls an embedding switch per video, and YouTube exposes it through oEmbed: a cleared video answers HTTP 200, a blocked one answers 401. Every cam here is re-checked against that switch, and a cam that stops answering comes off the page. Streams on other players need a written permission on file, because no such machine-readable switch exists there.
- Does opening this page contact YouTube?
- No. Nothing loads from the operator before you click — no iframe, no thumbnail, no request. The placeholder is our own. Only after you press play does the stream load, and then through youtube-nocookie.com.
- Can I use these cams to judge whether it is safe to swim?
- No. A camera shows the surface, not the rip current underneath it, and the picture can be minutes old. Read the rip current risk on the spot page, and on the beach the lifeguard flags outrank everything on this site.
States with a cleared cam
The full list of spots is on the spots page. Before you go in, read how to spot a rip current — a camera will not show you one.
A cam shows the surface at the moment it was captured, and the picture can lag. When the water looks different from the stream, trust the water and the lifeguards.