The Swell Conspiracy of mid January

I had four people come up to me yesterday and tell me how they heard about the "big surf " on the morning news. They told telling me how there were "ten feet waves" out there. The owner of the company where I work even made a comment.

"I hear the waves are pretty big out there." he said, his eyes wide.

"Yea. They're pretty good." I agreed.

My wife called me mid way through the morning.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing" she said. "How was surfing?"

"OK."

"The news said that the waves are really big." she said, concerned.

"So I've heard."

Here's my (conspiracy) theory:

Southern California waters are as polluted as they have ever been. We've been drowning in rain for nearly a month. The sea water is disgusting. Even this morning, eight days after the last raindrop, the water is murky and brown, it smells like shit, and the beaches are covered with at least ten forests worth of driftwood that has washed up, not to mention all the plastic, Styrofoam, giant metal pipe cylinders (no, I'm not kidding) and general trash.

Now, in the midst of that, we have a morning news headline (apparently repeated around the radio and TV resources) about "surf's up!" which somehow fails to mention the condition of the water, or the fact that anyone who swims in it for more than an hour and a half is almost guaranteed to start spouting green fungus from his nose and mouth the next day.

oh... and now a word from our sponsors.... Hilton hotels by the sea.... enjoy the lovely scenery of southern California. no pollution here. no worries. no problem. Surf's up, bro!

I asked one of the people who had reported the great surf conditions to me (just an hour after I surfed in mediocre conditions) where he had heard the news. He told me he saw it on the Fox morning news on television.

This isn't the first time that I've suspected a media outlet of publishing misleading information about beach conditions for a specific purpose.

"Should be nice for the US open this weekend." a co-worker had told me, as we stood by the coffee pot on the Friday before the annual summer event. "The Register says 3-5."

For most of the week leading up to the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, the Orange County Register published surf reports of "3-5" feet with "good" shape. The reality in the water was more like 0-2 feet with fair conditions. Amazingly enough, the paper was alone in it's erroneous reporting. Online reports and marine information told the truth.

I was suspicious. Spectator turnout for the contest was good. But, I went surfing the Saturday morning of the contest, and the waves were flat.