During the West Coast Experiment both in situ measurements (by wave buoys and by pressure arrays) and remote observations (by ground based high-frequency (HF) radar and by airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) were made to study the effects of offshore islands on the near-shore wave climate. The radar results reported here concern March 25, 1977, a day of moderate winds blowing out of the west at ~7 m s-1. The Torrey Pines near-shore pressure array indicated that the dominant wave period was 7 s arriving with a bimodal directional distribution centered approximately on west and northwest. The overall picture, which emerges from these observations of 7 s period waves, shows a broad, deep-ocean directional distribution arriving out of the west, being significantly modified as it propagates coastward passing San Clemente and Santa Catalina islands. The salient features introduced by the islands are a window between the islands, where an enhanced wave energy level is observed traveling eastward toward the southern California coast and a large shadow region extending some 50 km east of San Clemente Island in which eastward propagating wave energy is reduced by a factor of about 3. Although reduced in energy level, there are in fact eastward propagating waves in the shadow region where one would expect no eastward traveling waves at all based on geometric arguments. We have made estimates of the eastward moving wave energy introduced into the shadow region by reflection, refraction, diffraction, and wind generation processes, and we find that none of these mechanisms can account for the observed wave energy. SAR observations reveal a significant directional component traveling approximately transverse to the shadow region (parallel to the long dimension of the island). It is possible that nonlinear wave transfer driven by this directional component is the mechanism which produced the aforementioned eastward traveling waves in the shadow region. Further computation, beyond the scope of this paper, is required to evaluate this possibility. Intercomparisons between HF and SAR measurements as well as between radar and in situ observations confirm the current methods used to interpret the radar data. Although this confirmation is reassuring and this study demonstrates the efficacy of SAR and HF wave sensing techniques, research is needed to exploit SAR and HF radars fully as remote sensing tools in physical oceanography.