Pros, Greats, Goods, and Funs

I am not a professional surfer.

Don't pity me. I'm not really looking for sympathy. Unless, of course, you happen to be a professional surfer - in which case, your understanding, compassionately expressed though liberal financial charity, is very welcome. Remember, benevolent generosity is it's own reward.

I'm not a great surfer.

That doesn't mean that I haven't ridden some great waves. I have - or, at least, I have ridden what I thought were great waves. I've had rides on waves where I remember every millisecond of what happened for the whole next week. I've gone to sleep remembering waves that I've ridden. In vivid memories, I can recall every color in the water. I can see the bulges and flats. I can see the foam and the sun and the clouds. I can smell every plume of moist air, taste the lips of dried salt, hear the crash of the water. I can remember every second of every turn of some waves weeks after I rode them. I've finished rides on waves and paddled over to groups of complete strangers, grinning and nearly screaming "Hey, did you guys SEE that?!"

I wish I could say that other surfers got as excited about my rides as I do. More often than not, that doesn't seem to be the case.

It could be that other surfers have difficulty expressing themselves the way they'd like to. Perhaps if surfers could break through the barrier of machismo inexpression, I would find people hooting, hollering and screaming their admiration for me like teenage girls at a concert everywhere I go. It is possible that I actually have legions of fans up and down the Southern California coast, all of whom struggle in my presence to contain their overwhelming emotions to appear cool.

Or not.

To be entirely honest, I'm not even sure if I'm a "good" surfer.

Technically, I have no idea what makes someone a "good" surfer or not. I've seen surfing spots rated for "beginners", "intermediate" or "advanced" surfers, but I've never seen any meaningful criteria as to what skill sets are required for each category.

I've seen the guys in the videos and the magazines, doing gymnastic tricks with spraying water on dream waves in exotic locations where the locals wear no clothes. I've seen some contest footage on TV. Snap, turn, snap, turn, snap, turn... I never understood it until very recently when I read some of the criteria that judges are supposed to use to score surfing contestants "The surfer who can execute the most maneuvers on the face or curl of the wave will naturally have the opportunity to score the most points" (1). I've seen spectacular pictures in magazines and advertisements of surfers crouched in poses that look really cool. But, none of that seems to have anything to do with what I see at the beach.

I think my friend Chris is a good surfer. He's a big guy who rides a big board very aggressively. He moves around a lot on waves, pumping up and down the face with a semi circular hip motion like a tribal dancer. He catches good waves, and likes to ride them as long as possible, often staying on all the way into the shore break.

I think Dan, one of the locals at Seventeenth street, is a good surfer, too. Dan rides a mid size fun board with a round nose. He's patient. He waits for the right wave and when he takes off he comes down the line with big, slow, smooth turns where you can see his body weight shifting from one side to the other.

There's another local that we call Venice. I think Venice is a good surfer. She surfs nearly every day, and has as much fun sitting in a group of surfers talking as anyone I know. She readily admits that she's "got twenty years" on most of the people around her. She'll tell you that she didn't even start surfing until she was 45 years old. But, she's fearless paddling after the set waves, and I've seen her get some really fast, good drops with healthy bottom turns and fun rides - especially on the rights. Venice prefers rights.

If I were to make my own criteria for what makes a "good" surfer, it would be very simple: If it looks fun, and I'd like to do it, that's good.

If that were the criteria, then I'm defiantly a good surfer, because. I've ridden some really fun waves. And, in talking to other surfers, I've noticed that the most common comment other surfers give me has to do with fun.

"That looked like a fun one.", they'll say.

In retrospect, that's the highest compliment that one surfer can give another. If I watch someone riding a wave, and I imagined myself in their shoes, and it looked like good fun, then they've accomplished the goal for which I aspire.

So, I tell them. "Hey. That looked pretty fun."

When surfing is stripped down to fun, then there are very few bad surfers. After all, anyone who is in the water having fun can hardly be accused of failing. I've seen people who are clearly very inexperienced paddle into a wave, and stand up on a surfboard with wide, wild eyes. Their arms are outstretched and wobbling like a drunken tightrope walker. They shoot straight down the face of the wave, loose all their speed, and get smashed by the wall of whitewater from behind.

Then, after a second or two, a head pops up through the foam.

A picture of that face is worth a million words.

More Later
-Travis

Copyright 2004 Travis R. English


(1) Gabrielson, Bruce - The Complete Surfing Guide for Coaches

The Streak

On June 25th, 2004, I woke up at 5:00 in the morning, drove 30 miles to the beach, and went surfing for an hour before work, catching at least 3 waves before getting out of the water.

So began the streak.

For the next one hundred and sixteen days consecutively, I went surfing every day. Most of those days were spent at the same spot, between lifeguard tower 10 and lifeguard tower 16 in Huntington Beach, CA, on the same stretch of dark sand where I had stared surfing 9 summers prior.

On October 18, 2004, I went surfing on the second day of autumn's first rain storm. The water had become visibly polluted with the storm water runoff. Weather forecasts called for more rain in the following three days. Most surfers were staying home. Only a handful of souls, either brave or stupid, could be found in swimming the water along the beaches. The Surfrider Foundation, an environmental group dedicated to beach issues, posted an advisory on their website urging surfers to stay out of the water until 72 hours after the last rainfall.

The streak ended on October 19th, 2004, when I woke up at 6:45 in the morning, ate a bowl of corn pops, and drove directly to work in the rain.

Aside from the gasoline for driving to the beach, the money for surf wax, and two replacement fins for my surfboards, I didn't spend any money on this endeavor. The surfboard, wetsuits, and shorts that I used were all items that I owned prior to starting the streak, and continued to use after the streak was over. There were no membership fees to pay, no daily supplements to buy, no lift tickets - nothing of the sort. Aside from one or two days at the state beaches, I didn't even pay for parking, though it should be noted that the city of Huntington Beach added parking meters to the east side of Pacific Coast Highway between 17th and 18th street in the first week of October 2004.

The time can only be classified as leisure time, or "play time". While it was exercise, it can't really be called sport. I never felt that I was competing with anyone.

Once in the water, the entire experience was non-commercial. I didn't have to pay a beer company to see the dolphins of Huntington Beach or the schools of sting rays at Scripps Pier. There were no payments to any Hotels, Airlines, Travel Agents, Restaurants, Movie Theatres, Theme Parks, Bowling Alleys, or Golf Courses. The time I spent surfing spent was completely unprofitable to anyone in the radio or television production, programming, distribution, or advertising industries.

While I was in the water, I would like to say that I was subjected to no advertising of any kind. This is, however, not true. Looking back at shore from the water at Huntington Beach, the visible trash cans on the sand feature brightly colored ads for soft drink products, teen blockbuster movies, and surf contests. On several days, I surfed within visible distance of contest tents, brightly and loudly adorned with the logos of clothing companies, wetsuit manufacturers, retailers, and cell phone providers.

As a fringe benefit of this daily playtime, I have received the gifts of daily exercise. I have unintentionally lost approximately 8 pounds without having made any conscious changes in my diet. At the end of the streak, my upper body was in the best shape of my adult life.

Also, I got a lot better at surfing.

I was never, to my knowledge, criticized or judged for my choice of surfboard, wetsuit, or gear. Aside form one Newport Beach kid who yelled at me for missing a good wave, I was never even criticized for my surfing ability, or lack thereof. In fact, I was complimented on several occasions, by casual acquaintances or total strangers. The only criticism I received from other surfers was for disobeying the rules of surfing etiquette, the right of way laws by which all surfers are expected to abide.

My wife, when the streak was over, called me at my job. "I'm just glad it wasn't me!" she said.

A friend and fellow surfer, Chris, also called my office that morning. "So, how does it feel?" He asked.

I told him that I felt odd. A part of my day was missing. It was the first day that I hadn't seen the ocean in nearly four months. I had left my carpeted house, drove over the concrete and asphalt roads, walked across the brick plaza of the office park into the carpeted office building. There was no ocean involved in my morning.

"Yea.." Chris sighed, "That gets old real quick."

More Later,

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Hell of a swimsuit

In the summer of 1946, the United States Navy assembled a fleet of 90 ships in a lagoon just off the coast of a small island in the Pacific. Some of the ships were older American vessels, others were captured Japanese and German boats. One ship, the USS Nevada, was painted bright orange. The ships were anchored and fitted with experimental monitoring equipment. Then, the entire fleet was evacuated. A nearby island and a support fleet, carrying over 130 international press correspondents, were also evacuated to a distance of ten miles.

At nine in the morning on July 1, a 121 kiloton nuclear warhead, named "ABLE" was dropped on the 90 boat fleet. Even from their positions 8 to 15 miles away, witnesses claim that the event was awesome to behold. A 100,000 degree, bright orange fireball erupted, scolding metal and wood, flashing water into steam, and generating a blast wave which shot out from the explosion at 180 miles per hour as the orange fireball began to rise.

Waves of water and steam rocked the fleet. One boat was thrown 150 yards by the shock wave. The fireball rose into the familiar mushroom cloud shape, peaking at nearly 40,000 feet above the surface of the water and disrupting winds in the upper atmosphere for 20 minutes. As the steam cleared, 5 ships had been sunk by ABLE.

A second 120 kiloton bomb, named "BAKER" was detonated under the fleet. Witnesses describe an amazing dome of water and steam rising into the air, clearly visible from fifteen miles away. The explosion of BAKER sunk an additional eight ships.

After the blasts, teams that were sent into the site for observations, reporting, and to determine the effects of radiation.

Being one of the first, and one of the most widely witnessed nuclear tests, news of the explosions, the radiation, and the participants reached around the world. Controversy has followed the tests ever since. Even as recently as March of 2004, the BBC press carried a story remembering the 50th anniversary of the tests, recalling how the explosions had "contaminated a passing Japanese fishing boat and showered nearby villagers with radioactive ash."

In the aftermath of the tests, indigenous populations of the nearby islands were evacuated. Years later, after lengthy proceedings, the US government has paid damages to small groups of fisherman, military personnel and civilians. A cleanup operation was begin and continues to this day. The islands' land based food chain is still contaminated, and the displaced islanders claim that the United States government still owes them a full clean up of the islands.

Press coverage of the testing was heavy. The news reached the ears of a Frenchman named Louis Reared. In 1946, Reared designed a bathing suit for women. The style was generating some controversy, and Reard took advantage of the controversy in his marketing. In a move which would intensify the profitable controversy around the new bathing suit style, and act to solidify the aforementioned mushroom clouds into our popular vocabulary, Reard decided to name his bathing suit design after the small island where the U.S. tests had taken place - the island of Bikini Atoll.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Some Sources
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
operation crossroads: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm
BBC News: "Bikini Atoll bomb test remembered" 4/1/04

The End

from the www.surfrider.org website

"Polluted Runoff Status:

(last updated on 10/18/2004 7:00 AM)

Runoff Warning: there has been heavy rain (more than three-tenths of an inch) in the coastal watershed within the past 3 days, so there are high amounts of polluted runoff in beach waters countywide. There is also an elevated risk of sewage entering coastal waters. Contact with beach water is not recommended until after 72 hours after the end of the last rain event."

After 116 days, it looks like the streak is over.

On Saturday night in early October, the first raindrops of the autumn season fell from their clouds and struck my daughter's window. From there, the slid down to the window sill and drained down the back wall of our townhouse to the concrete patio below. From the concrete patio, the water moved outward, picking up dirt and oil as it moved over more concrete and asphalt to the street, where it merged with the water from other houses patios and driveways. The storm drain water ran down the street to a low point, through a trench drain and into the storm drainage utility pipes below the ground. From my house, the water doesn't have far to travel. It discharges into the Santa Ana river less than a half mile away. Eight miles later, the Santa Ana river discharges into the storm water, and all the dirt and oil it has picked up, into the Pacific Ocean.

I surfed on 10/17 and 10/18 (days 115 and 116) even after Saturday night's rain. Surfing on those two days was a mistake. On Saturday night, our house in Anaheim got rain from the early morning hours until about 5:30 am. I drove to the beach in the rain, but thought that I would take a look. The rain cleared and the sky looked promising. I paddled out. There was me and two other surfers, kids on funboards. I caught my three waves in the storm chop and got out. On my way out, it started to rain again. I passed by a big gulch in the sand where the storm water had carved a four foot deep canyon on its way into the ocean.

Sunday passed with no further rain incident, and I couldn't figure out if Saturday had been too much rain or not. Surfrider had not yet posted the above warning. I packed the board and went to Newport. There was another guy in the water already. On shore, there were piles of drift wood chips and trash. The line of boats was still there. I swam in quickly, caught three fast waves, and got out - all inside of fifteen minutes.

If so much as a drop falls from the sky today, I'm not going surfing tomorrow.

The paper is predicting more rain today, and the sky is looking like it agrees. From the window in my office, It looks like the streak is over.

More Later.

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

The Gods of Newport

The Gods of Newport Beach are young, lithe, school boys with perfectly messy hair, little rascal faces, loud voices, and bad attitudes. They catch waves effortlessly, even on the smallest day or in the worst of conditions. They produce speed from nothingness. They find barrels in impossibly small waves. They whip screaming turns atop chest high waves, spraying water from below their fins. They gain enough speed to shoot up and out of waves in aerial dismounts.

I spent a morning with one of the Gods of Newport. The rest of the Gods were off at a high school surf contest, leaving just he and I to play in some Thursday morning lefts breaking away from the rock pile jetty. He was small and thin, with blond hair and a freckled cherub face. His nimble body, shrink wrapped in neoprene, moved quickly and effortlessly over the water. He couldn't have been a day over fourteen.

When I tried to make conversation, the God hesitantly acknowledged my existence with a grunt of disapproval. Single word responses would be the extent of our conversations. I would have had a better chance at dialogue had I been a prying parent or a junior high school guidance counselor.

I felt out of place and obsolete. The god sat hunched on his tiny shortboard, only his shoulders and head protruding from his liquid chair. I was sitting on my funboard, back straight, with my entire torso above the surface of the water like a tall tree in a forest of shrubbery. The god paddled around me on his wafer thin, incomprehensibly short, sticker adorned, high performance board. Normally, I would laugh at someone riding a board like this in small surf. Unfortunately, the skill with which he surfed denied me any excuse for such mockery, leaving my ego miserably soggy like the fur on a wet cat.

Sharing the same peak, we divided up the share of waves according to the standard "one wave, one rider" rules, wherein the surfer closest to the curl has the right of way. The god's inexhaustible and superior paddling often put in the right place at the right time, leaving me to watch as he carved mincemeat of the best waves the morning had to offer.

On one wave, I came close to violating the rules, getting all the way to my feet before making the hard turn back over the lip to get out of his way. When he paddled back out, I apologized profusely in humble gyrations. He grunted his minimal acknowledgement.

On another wave, I paddled in close to the curl and dropped down into a clean section. The god dropped in front of me, halfway down the face, then turned back up out of my way. I smugly paddled back out to accept the apology owed me, an apology the god managed to condense into a single syllable which he nearly belched at me in mock courtesy.

Highest on my list of sins was the wave I missed. Again in position, I paddled lazily for a very clean looking wave that spoke of great possibilities. As the wave began to pick up my momentum, I found myself too far forward on the surfboard, the nose of which began to sink into the wave. I made an attempt to rescue my balance, grabbing the sides of the board and pushing forward to compensate. But, my attempt was unsuccessful. The wave passed. The god, sitting in prime position where he could have caught the wave had it not been for my failed effort, glared at me for my incompetence.

I smiled weakly - the smile of a grade school boy who just farted in a classroom full of girls.

The following day brought better surf at low tide. The Gods of Newport came out in force. The battle for position in the line up was discouraging. It seemed like every good looking wave that came in, there was a quick kid paddling into position to claim the right of way.

I missed a wave and got yelled at by a brown haired, round faced rascal. "C'mon, man." he groaned loudly "you gotta GO!" I considered giving the god an explanation of some of life's intricacies with which he was not yet familiar, but decided against it. This was their world. The Gods of Newport owned this beach. I was just visiting.

I caught my last wave and ride to shore, looking back at the Gods of Newport, and grateful for a moment that the following day would be Saturday. I was looking forward to getting back to Huntington Beach, where us incompetents could mix with the surfing elite and retain a modicum of pride.

More Later.

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Could'a been a dentist

After the filming of "The Endless Summer", for which he received no proceeds, Seal Beach local boy turned star of the surfing screen, Robert August returned to Southern California and enrolled in the dental college at the recently opened California State University campus in Long Beach.

He never graduated.

On Sunday, the swell was still pretty good sized, but the wind was up and the water was choppy. The combination of swell and chop made for some pretty ugly conditions. Paddeling wasn't easy, to say the least.

While I was out in the water, I saw a surfer, who I thought I recognized as Venice, carry an orange shortboard down to the shore line. She stood and watched the surf for several minutes, then re-positioned thirty yards down shore and watched the surf for a few more minutes. Then, she turned around and walked away, leaving the beach without even getting her hair wet.

Brett and I both agreed that we respected that. It's always said that if one can judge that the conditions are outside of one's comfortable ability, it's better to leave and surf another day. I've never actually done that, and have paddled around in surf conditions that I had no business paddling around in. To date, I've had a few scares, but never been hurt.

I'd like to think that next time, I'd be as smart as Venice.

Since Sunday, the swell has been decreasing and I've been surfing at the Newport jetties, where I get to share waves with the Newport Harbor High School Surf Team on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's noting like a bunch of young, loud, highly skilled, rude attitude surfers to make you remember just how old you are.

But, who am I to complain. I remember the bumper sticker about "the worst day fishing...", and realize that it could be worse.

I mean, Robert August could have been a dentist.

More later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

The October Dilemma

During morning surfing session, I normally wore a watch under the arm of my wetsuit. The watch was an inexpensive digital with a programmable alarm. I set the alarm for 6:48 in the morning. The alarm was to notify me that I had to be out of the water in ten minutes. Of course, it can be difficult to hear an alarm when the watch is underwater and insulated by three millimeters of neoprene rubber.

Brett hated my watch. He also wore a digital watch. However, his was a large, masculine looking device with a double Velcro clasp. He must have paid over ten dollars for the thing, which was what separated it from mine. My watch was free. I have no memory of how I acquired it. In fact, it's very likely that the watch belonged to my wife, though she has no recollection of where it may have come from. The watch is small and cheap, made for either a woman or a child. It barely fits around my wrist, feeling tight even when I clasp it in the first hole on the plastic watchband. I would have lost the watch long ago had it not been for long sleeved wetsuit arms to cover it. When the temperature allows shorts, I usually put the watch in the Velcro pocket of the shorts, or leave it on shore and rely on Brett's timepiece.

With the arrival of October, a race against time began.

In order to get to work by the start time of 8 a.m., I left the water at 7.

I walked up the shoreline and across the sand. I climbed the stairs, and crossed the sidewalk to the street. There I waited for the green light, or a wide break in traffic to safely allow jaywalking. I crossed the street, and walked a block north to intersection where I parked.

I unzipped my wetsuit, and peeled the rubber away from my arms and torso to rescue the key from the suit's key pocket. Unlocking the truck, I retrieved a three gallon drinking water jug from inside. This three gallon jug of water was filled with tap water from the hose in my backyard, and served as my daily shower. I dumped the jug over my head, rinsing out my hair and my wetsuit. I rinsed the sand from my feet, washed the salt water off the surfboard, and filled my drinking water glass with the last bit of the three gallons.

My work clothes - a dress short, slacks and belt - were hung on a single hanger which was behind the passenger seat of the truck. Using a towel around my waist as cover, I peeled the wetsuit from my legs and put the pants on. The wetsuit was a inside out in a pile on the ground. I straightened the suit, tugged the arms and legs to leave it right side out, zipped up the zipper and closed the Velcro seams. I then put on my work shirt and belt. In the truck were a bottle of hair gel and a brush, which I used aided by my reflection in the truck's rear view mirror.

Still not wearing shoes (as my feet remained wet and tacky from the water), I walked to the driver's side door of the truck, got in, and drove off. It was 7:20.

The drive from 17th street in Huntington Beach to my office building in Irvine took between 30 and 35 minutes. If I arrived at 7:50, I would pull up behind the building, park temporarily and run the surfboard up the service elevator to avoid carrying it across the public entryway drive. However, most days I arrived after 7:50, and drove directly to the parking garage.

In the parking garage, I put on my socks and shoes, and removed the surfboard from the truck bed, where it had been protected from dents by elastic cords and a beach towel. I laid the beach towel out on the parking garage floor and laid the wetsuit on top of it. I folded the sides of the beach towel over the top of the wetsuit, and rolled the two up together into a burrito which I placed in the back of the truck. The wetsuit would transfer most of it's water to the towel over the course of the day. Later that evening, I would hang both wetsuit and towel to dry overnight.

Carrying a surfboard and a sack lunch, I walked across the plaza and into the office building, arriving at the second floor at 8 o'clock in the a.m.

Sunrise on October 1 occurred at 6:47.

At twenty five to thirty minutes before sunrise, twilight begins. The exact time of twilight varies slightly depending on cloud cover.

During October there was a rapid latening of the sunrise time. In the beginning of October, sunrise occurred at 6:47, but by the 10th of the month, sunrise happed at 6:53. By the end of October, sunrise would be at 7:11, leaving me less than a half an hour of twilight for surfing.

On October 10th, I decided that if the streak were to have any chance of continuing through October, I needed to buy time. I moved my day to day location to the north most river jetty at 56th street in Newport Beach. The move cut ten minutes from my drive time, which would allow me to stay in the water as late as 7:15 and still be at work on time.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

Fog, Waves, and Chase

( Day 106 & 107 )

After a week of small surf in the beginning of October, a swell came in on Friday, generated from a storm in the north Pacific. Excited by the overnight surf reports, I went to the garage and grabbed the shortboard.

When I exited the 22 freeway and turned into Huntington Beach, I drove into a thick morning fog bank. The dense white cloud obscuring all visibility less than a hundred feet away. At one intersection, I strained to see the traffic light on the other side.

I arrived at the beach to find Brett getting into his wetsuit. From our parking spots on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway, we couldn't see the water, the sand, or even the top of the staircase leading down to the beach.

Two other surfers pulled in and parked. Out of habit, they crossed the street to look at the surf. This ritual is fairly common among the surfers. I didn't think anything of it. Brett, however, started laughing.

"What the hell do you figure they'll see?" He asked.

He was right. The sidewalk vantage point where they stood was one hundred or more yards from the shore line. It was still dark, and the water would be completely obscured by the fog.

We walked down to the waterfront, fog illuminated by only the barest twilight filtering over the invisible eastern horizon. By the time we reached the water, the street lights of the coast highway were completely obscured.

Paddling out into fog came with some uncertainty. The waves that we were swimming through could have been the whitewater shore break, the medium sized waves, or the largest set waves. There was simply no way to tell. I had the thought that I could paddle forever and never know how close I was to making it to the line up. Only when we reached a calm section did we assume that we were at the line up. From where we
sat in the water, visibility was less than fifty yards in any direction. All we could see was water and fog.

We waited.

"Are we drifting out?" I asked Brett.

He shrugged. We could be halfway to Catalina Island or Long Beach, and we'd never know it.

There were a few other surfers. Some of them were whistling and calling to each other, trying to find their friends in the fog.

"I think there's two guys over there." I told Brett, pointing to the right.

"I think there's someone over there, too." Brett said.

"No." I answered. "That was the shark."

(When a couple of surfers are feeling alone in the water at peak feeding hours and land is nowhere in sight - somebody's got to mention the shark, just to break the ice. Even though the chances of a visit from "the man in the gray suit" are very slim, we're all thinking about him in the backs of our minds.)

Naturally, catching waves in extreme fog conditions is a challenge. Seeing the wave coming, judging where the peak will be, adjusting and finding a spot to paddle into the wave are all greatly inhibited by the lack of vision. Nonetheless, the waves were the best that they'd been in over a week, and catching the first was all it took to
convince me that this was possible. Of course, seeing a handful of other surfers come into my field of vision helped out, too.

I stayed past seven to get a fourth ride, and raced to make it to work by eight.

The following day, Saturday, was clear of fog with better waves. The morning was cool and windless. The waves were chest to overhead high and breaking in a hundred shifting spots up and down the beach. For Huntington Beach, this is as good as it gets.

Dan is a surfer who lives nearby the break at seventeenth street. He normally rides down to the beach on his beach cruiser bicycle to check out the waves at half past six in the morning. He leisurely rides around the block, often nodding a good morning while Brett and I put our wetsuits.

Saturday morning, Dan stopped at our cars. "It looks really good out there." He said, his eyes beaming. Dan is tall, with tan skin of a racially indeterminable origin, distinct features, and short cut, dark, but lightly graying hair. His features are such that, at a glance, Dan can sometimes appear to be scowling. Once approached, however, Dan is a perfectly cordial fellow, whose face gets sporadically intense and happy over good surf or the possibility of good surf. On that morning, Dan was visibly exited. When he rode off on his bike, Brett remarked "Wow. I've never seen him ride that bike so fast."

"This is the perfect size" Brett remarked, lingering on shore nearly two and a half hours later when I crossed the street back to my truck.

I had to agree. The chest to head high waves offered a surfer in my skill level the best of both worlds. It was non-threatening enough to be encourage lots of rides, and powerful enough to allow a shorter board and faster maneuvers. Additionally, with the swell coming into the beach from the north, the waves broke in peaks which offered both rights and lefts with fairly long rides.

A good portion of the crowd of regulars were there. Dan had quickly suited up and was in the water less than ten minutes after we saw him on his bike. Venice paddled out just past seven on her shortboard. "Hey, the longboard is great." she said, "But only when necessary."

I spent most of the time paddling around with Chase, a surfer whom I'd spoken to on many occasions over the summer. I had told Chase about the every day surfing streak sometime in the middle of August. Ever time we'd see each other, Chase asked if the streak was still alive. "And, you say you've got a wife?" He would always ask. "Man, she must be pretty cool."

Chase is of medium build, in his mid thirties, married with one child, and also a commuter to Huntington Beach. Chase lives in La Mirada, on the north end of Orange County. "I make it here in about thirty five minutes." he said, "as long as I leave early enough."

Surfing with Chase, I found out that he is also a brave practitioner of the late take off. The late take off is when the surfer pushes the envelope on the timing of catching a wave, risking a trip over the falls and attempting to catch a wave as it is breaking. When surfers catch waves, it is normal to be on their feet just before the wave starts to pitch and break behind them. Of course, timing is everything in the act of catching a wave, and surfers learn to recognize the look of a wave in each microsecond stage before it breaks. If a surfer tries to catch the wave too late in the process, the force of the pitching water can throw board and rider forward into the foam without allowing the rider to get to his feet.

Chase does the late take off very well, even in head high surf. Several times, he positioned himself right in the curl of a breaking wave. He leaned back, pulling most the mass of his surfboard under water where its bouyency could act like a coiled spring. When the wave started to push him forward, he let the spring out, jettisoning his board and his body out in front of the wave for the split second he needed to get to his feet.

Surprisingly, he was continuously successful. I got to chiding him about it. During one set, we were paddling out into some of the larger waves, and Chase dove through one just in time. Slightly behind him, the wave broke right on top of me. After a few seconds of fumbling in churning water, I recovered, and continued paddling out to where Chase was sitting in wait.

"You could have made that one." I told him.

Chase laughed. "Hey..You know I like the late stuff. But, there's limits."

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004, Travis R. English

C'mere Pelican

day 105

As the summer turned to autumn and the mornings became darker, the pelicans began to fly lower over the dark water. I took to splashing at the birds as they flew by. Paddling out into the small surf, I watched the beasts. Some birds sat in the water, resting outside the break. Other pelicans flew over the water alone, or in angled formations in groups of three to eight.

Early morning and late afternoon during the rising tide are the prime feeding times for pelicans. In the mornings, small fish often jump out of the water in tiny splashes. Larger fish sometimes jump after the small fish, their greedy mouths open in short flight.

A pelican flew by me, and spotted a fish for catching. It flew low to the water, gliding only a foot above the surface. Suddenly, the bird angled its path upwards, then spun its body against the flight momentum and did a diving crash into the water. It hit the water with its back turned to the direction it was previously flying. The beak entered the surface of the water open, and perfectly vertical. While it's body continued twisting towards equilibrium, the pelican closed his beak in a quick scooping motion.

At the end of the whole maneuver, the pelican was sitting upright on the surface of the water. It paused for a moment, for what I could only assume is an inventory of the catch. Calmly spreading it's wings, it beat several times quickly, splashing the water lightly with its wing tips, and flew off, dripping water from its beak.

Pelicans have been known to dive for food from a height of 40 feet. The pelicans we see in the mornings have wingspans of up to six feet. They are not small beasts, and crash into the water with quit a bit of force, often submerging completely and resurfacing.

The California brown pelican breeds in the Channel Islands, off the California coast at Santa Barbara. The breeding season runs from March to early August, after which the pelicans spread out along the California coast to as far down as Baja California. Some pelicans wander inland to the Colorado River or the Salton Sea. Others can be found up to 100 miles out to sea.

My boss is from Australia. He calls our brown California pelicans "dirty miniature versions of pelicans."

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English


sources include:
CA department of Fish and Game http://www.dfg.ca.gov/whdab/html/B043.html

Fifty Grommet Street

Day 102

"Grommet" - (n) A young surfer. Short: "Grom"

I woke up and looked at the dismal surf report on the internet. Unsatisfied, I clicked around to several more web pages with various surf, ocean, and weather reports, looking for some glimmer of hope. There was none. All the reports were in consensus, and they all said that at best, I would find a few two foot waves.

Brett and I had seen this particular waveless spell coming, and had agreed to shift our meeting location to the Newport beach jetties to try to increase our chances of finding a breaking wave or two. Brett had missed Monday's session, having sustained a serious injury by dropping a tape measure on his knee. While I would normally have scoffed at this injury and assaulted Brett with an infinite variety of creatively derogatory names, I had to admit that any excuse was worth staying home when conditions were this small. Had I not been on day 101 or 102, I would have stayed home myself.

On Tuesday, we met in the dark and dressed in our wetsuits. Brett told me the fantastic story of his tape measure accident.

Walking out into the water, the first chill of autumn bit us. "Did I mention" I asked Brett "That the water got cold, too?"
"No. You left that part out."

Once we were in the water, the wetsuits did their work, and within minutes we were comfortable. The sky was gray and the water was dark. Perhaps stagnant from the lack of swell, or an augury of the change in season, the water was unusually populated with various floating kelp plants. The small surf was only breaking immediately next to the rock jetties, so Brett and I stayed precariously close to it. Normally, I like to keep a little distance between myself and the jetties. A third surfer, a thin, middle aged man with white hair and a longboard, joined us after a quarter of an hour.

Newport Harbor High School Surfing Team is one of many high school surfing teams in the Southern California area who participate in the National Scholastic Surfing Association's (NSSA) Southwest Conference. The NSSA is a non profit organization which holds surfing competitions around the country leading up to a national championship every year.

As seven o'clock approached, so did the Newport Harbor High School Surfing Team. Team practice began at eight in the morning, but a good number of surfers had shown up early to try to get a few waves in before practice. They gathered on the sand, chining from their clothes into their wetsuits in a circle by the lifeguard tower. Bunches of kids ran into the water south of the jetties, and began catching the small waves. Even on the waves that Brett and I considered to be un-surfable junk, the high school surfers were finding their way around to, snapping top turns and doing quick cutbacks. Some of the kids, riding longboards, were performing nose rides on the small waves. When I got out of the water, I stood by the rocks of the jetties next to the mother of one of the young surfers. Waiting for Brett, I watched them surf for a few moments.

"Groms..." Brett said.

As we walked back to our cars, we passed the team's coach, telling a young surfer that there was eight minutes until workout began. The surfer was running towards the ocean. I had every confidence that the kid could surf up a storm in eight minutes.

High School surfing clubs, or teams, began in Huntington Beach in 1971, when Bruce Gabrielson, working at Edison High in Huntington Beach, organized the first informal Orange County surfing championship. The team from San Clemente High School won the event that year. By 1973, Huntington Beach High School had formed a varsity team, and issued the first varsity "letters" in surfing in 1974.

As Brett and I dressed for work, donning dress slacks and shoes, I found it hard to hide my envy for the kids of the Newport Harbor High School Surf Team.

"Can you imagine.." I dreamed aloud, "having you mom yelling at you to wake up and go to surfing practice? 'But mom, I'm sleeping'.... 'Damnit, you get you butt out of that bed and go surf young man. Don't make me come in there.'...."

"Tough life" Brett said.

Yea. Tough life.

More Later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English


some sources:
www.nssa.org - NSSA website
www.blackmagic.com/ses/book/toc.html Bruce Gabrielson, "The Complete Surfing Guide For Coaches" (Web Version)

y Ciento

The morning was clear. The water was calm. There was no morning wind. The sun rose into the low marine clouds slowly and ungloriously, casting dim light onto the grey and blue surface of the water. As the light grew, the water became clear. We could see the kelp plants drifting lazily along the sand floor.

Unfortunatly, there we no waves.

Brett and I waited. The sets of waves peaked every five to ten minutes, producing one or two ridable waves and then setteling down to another wait.

I had decided to start experimenting with the fin arrangement on my 7'6" surfboard. I removed the middle fin, leaving only the outer two. This made the board less controlable, and prone to sliding out from under me on hard turns. Actually, I quite enjoyed it in the small surf. I droped down to the bottom of and wave and turned off the bottom, using the side rail of the board for the turn. Then, back up at the top of the face, I turned down in a deliberatly fast motion. The fins lost their hold of the water and the back of the board slid sideways for a few feet before catching again.

I've been surfing every day for one hundred days.

Jumping off of my surfboard after a lazy ride on another wave, I opened my eyes and dove down to the sand floor. Looking around at the kelp plants and watching for fish, I languished for amoment before surfacing. Coming back up to the surface, however, I was greeted by a sharp pain in the face. I had surfaced right under the back of my surfboard. The tail of the board hit my forehead. One of the fins hit my chin, cutting a gash into the left side of my jaw.

I left the water looking like I cut myself shaving. But, having only been a day of small surf, I had no great story to explain the wound.

"I'll have to make something up for the guys at work." I told Brett.

We had a few laughs creating the ridiculously exagerated scenarios that surfers would normally tell about such a battle scar.

Later that evening, the Anaheim Angeles clinched the American league division title against the Oakland Athletics, coming back from a deficit to win the game that eliminated all hopes of Oakland entering the playoffs.

After the game, my father and I get into a discussion of sports sociology.

Sports sociologists distinguish between "sport", where teams compete for a competitive goal from "games" where individuals or teams compete for the sake of competing or playing together. Lastly, activites such as surfing are catagorized as "play". They are athletic activites, but have no competitive value, no goal and no prize other than the participation itself.

More later

-Travis

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

And now, a few words on Surf Nazis

The years surrounding the Endless Summer were the peak years of the Hollywood surf movies. Most notably, the films of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello from 1963 to 1966, brought the beach lifestyle and the surfer slang language to the mainstream of middle America.

In "Beach Party (1963)", Eric von Zipper (played by Harvey Lembeck) was the leader of a gang of "mice" and "rats". Von Zipper's motorcycle gang were the villains in the mindless plot. They dressed in black leather, were rowdy, and subject to the constant criticism of their leader, Von Zipper, who continuously referred to the gang members as "stupids".

The Von Zipper character became a staple of the "Beach" films, appearing in "Muscle Beach Party (1964)", "Bikini Beach (1964)", "Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)" featuring Von Zipper's singing, and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)". Von Zipper also appeared in some of the spin off films from the beach series, such as "Pajama Party (1964)" (aka The Maid and the Martian, where a Martian who is investigating earth falls in love with Annette), "Ski Party (1965)", and ."The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini (1966)".

In "Beach Blanket Bingo", Von Zipper was shown at his hideout. On the wall behind him was a framed picture of Adolph Hitler. In that scene, for the first time, surfing and Nazism were brought together.

Twenty one years later, the credits for "Lost Boys", a 1987 Keifer Sutherland Vampire film, listed four actors playing the roles of "Surf Nazi # 1" through "Surf Nazi # 4". Nazism and surfing, apparently, had retained their association.

Perhaps the model of the Surf Nazi was based on the celebrated legends of notorious Malibu surfer, Miki "Da Cat" Dora. Dora was a sensational surfer who had a profound influence on surfing style in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was noted for his balance, side stepping on the surfboard, nose riding, and clean lines in the pockets of Malibu's medium sized waves. Dora was also one of the surfers at Malibu who met Kathy Kohner in the summer of 1966. Dora's friend, Robert "Tubesteak" Patterson, is credited with giving Kathy the nickname "Gidget". Dora would go on to do stunt riding in "Gidget (1959)" and several other beach movies.

But, Dora was also notorious at Malibu for stunts like pushing people out of his way on waves or deliberately running into people with his surfboard. Stories abound of Dora setting off cherry bomb firecrackers in the restrooms of a theatre showing an early surf movie, setting fire to a surf photographer's tripod and film, participating in a street drag race with a modified, 400 horsepower "Woody" station wagon, or playing a poker game on the back of the kneeling, naked, 16-year old daughter of a local politition, covered in a sheet, while the police knocked on the door.

Dora also dressed the part of the surf nazi, often cited as wearing full length trench coats with war medals, iron crosses and swastikas, and began a trend of painting iron crosses on the bottom of surfboards. He was once reported to have attended a tennis match at a public tennis court in Beverly Hills, where the attendees included the largely Jewish local population, adorned in a full woolen trench coat and nazi cap with a swastika chain dangling from his neck.

The surf nazi term was used in the 70s and 80s to describe the phenomenon of localism, where regular surfers protected their spots from outsiders with anti social and sometimes violent behavior. The practice of localism was simultaneously encouraged and chastised by the surfing press, who printed lengthy articles denouncing localism while continuously guarding the "secret spots" where photos were taken. To date, some photos in surfing publications have captions indicating where the photo was shot, while others delibratly fail to mention the spot.

The film production company, Troma, has a long history of producing some of the most tasteless gems of the silver screen.

The Troma legacy dates as far back as "Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)", a film which was heavily protested by the US organization, Women Against Pornography, for its excessive brutality to women. Bowing to protests, the MPAA refused to issue a rating, a virtual ban on US distribution. In response, Troma re-edited the film and re-submitted it to the MPAA for review. The MPAA issued an R rating for the revised film. Troma then pulled the bait and switch, shipping the original version to theatres. The MPAA later sued Troma for unauthorized and improper use of the "R" rating label.

In the next decade, Troma gained cult followings and more notoriety for films such as "The Toxic Avenger (1985)" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986)", both of which spawned a series of sequels.

In 1987, Troma turned its cameras on the surf culture of southern California. The result was the film "Surf Nazis Must Die", now available in a director's cut edition on DVD home video.

The land based scenes in "Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)" were filmed primarily in Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach (Ca), and Long Beach. The surfing sequences, featuring footage of surfers riding waves in surf gang costumes, were shot on the north shore of Oahu in winter. The surf nazi gang, led by Adolph, live in a spray painted concrete lair, drive a spray painted van with shark teeth painted on the front and a dorsal fin attached to the top, and reign over the southern California beaches in a very poorly done post apocalyptic setting. The gang members also wear Aleeda wetsuits, provided to the producers by the Huntington Beach based company, and spray painted for a punk effect.

I, of course, rented "Surf Nazis Must Die" for its incomparable research significance. There is considerable entertainment value in watching the surfing sequences, where one surfer attempts maneuvers on head high north shore waves with a gruesome metal hook attached to one hand. Aside from that, however, the film is completely unwatchable trash. As a veteran viewer of many horribly bad movies, I consider myself to have a certain tolerance for poor production quality, horrible dialogue, wooden acting, as well as gratuitous sex and gore. But, even I found myself watching a substantial portion of the film with my finger firmly pressed on the fast forward button.

More Later.

-Trav

copyright 2004 Travis R. English

sources include
www.legendarysurfers.com
www.troma.com
www.imdb.com