California - Summer of 1987
I spent the Summer of 1987 in California with my friends Hand Brink and Frank Siciliano. Growing up reading Surfer and Surfing Magazines, California seemed to embody the surf culture more than anywhere else in the United States. I'm sure Hollywood did its part playing up the southern California scene with beautiful blondes and beaches. At any rate, it was a necessary trip for a bunch of kids who were serious about surfing.
We had an early flight out of Miami, which was a couple of hours south of Stuart, so we had to get up early. At the end of that day, one of the things that has stuck with me over the years, is how remarkable I thought it was that I got to see the Sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific. That, and the very different world we entered when we arrived in Los Angeles.
Let me illustrate a few things so you can understand our shock of Los Angeles. In 1987, I-95 in Florida wasn't even complete, so you couldn't drive all the way to Miami without transfering to the Florida Turnpike. And the Turnpike was only four lanes (two each direction). I drove a tiny little Honda CRX at the time in relatively light traffic.
There were three of us and all of our surfboards and junk. We were pretty broke, so we had reserved a compact rental car to get around. Fortunately, they didn't have any compacts left, so they upgraded us to a mid-size for no charge :). We ended up with a brand new four door Chevy Cavalier. After loading our stuff and ourselves (thank goodness for soft racks), there's no way we could have made it in a compact!
We had talked to a couple of people at my local surf break, The Rocks, who had been to California and we figured that we'd kind of land in San Clemente for a base. So we pull out of the airport in what may as well have been a Lincoln Towncar as far as I was concerned. We somehow made it to the freeway, and what a crazy place! There were at least five lanes going each way - motorcycles were weaving between cars, people were cutting each other off, and generally speaking I was pretty terrified. heh. This was my first big city experience. Compared to the years I've lived in Atlanta, Ga, it was relatively tame I suppose, but not for an 18 year old's first big city experience.
Being young, poor surfers, we hadn't arranged any place to stay. All we really knew was that we had a cheap car and the name of a town as a possible destination. After finally talking Hank and Frank out of gong straight to the nearest beach for a surf (I could just see us getting robbed blind our first day there), we were on our way to San Clemente.
San Clemente was a relatively small coastal town with a bunch of hills. It wasn't that big, so there weren't a lot of options when considering a place to stay for a couple of months. Long story short, there was one rather shady motel (Algadon Motel) that had a very small efficiency they'd rent us for pretty cheap. Of course, you get what you pay for. It appeared that the carpet had once been shag, but looked more like stained linolium. It was truly a nasty place - roaches and all. But we didn't plan on spending much time there anyway.
The motel was close to downtown, which was at the top of a hill that had roads meandering down to the ocean. We all had skateboards and spent a lot of time charging down the streets at full speed, all the way down to the ocean. Of course, getting back kind of sucked, but it didn't matter too much at that age. There were a few surf breaks straight down the hill (like T-street), but we didn't spend much time there because it was mostly shore break, and we didn't come to California to surf stuff we can find in Florida.
We spent most of our days surfing a place called Tresles. It was located right next to Nixon's former "Western Whitehouse." We had to park in a dirt lot next to a Carl's Junior, and then we'd ride our skateboards down this long paved path all the way down to the beach. The reason it was called Tresles, is because there's a large train tresle that goes over a small lagoon just behind the beach dune. The North side of the tresles was uppers and the South side was lowers. Lowers was the better of the two break because it was more of a point break, but it was also a much longer walk to get reach it. There was a shortcut that you could take though ;). The tresle I mentioned took you right over the lagoon is you chose to walk it, saving you a rather long and hot walk around it. Being the young fools we were, we took the tresle the first week or so we were there. There's a picture of it, but it doesn't really do it justice. Basically, the tresle had two huge metal walls about ten feet tall the entire length over the lagoon. And it was on a curve in the track. Amtrack would come through there fairly regularly, and man were they fast!
One morning, we were walking the tresle to save time. We were right about in the middle of it, when we heard CHOO CHOOOO! Oops. heh. We all looked at each other in terror, as if we were shocked that a train would actually come while we were on the tresle. Mind you, each of us was carrying a surfboard, skateboard, wetsuit, and other miscellaneous junk. We all took off running for the end. I wasted no time and was out in front running like there was no tomorrow. I reach ed the end and jumped down off the track. Hank was right on my tail, but Frank had stumbled at first (note the gravel and railroad tie surface) and was a little further back. When I turned around, I saw Frank diving head first off the track into the gravel, and the train was right behind him. Frank and his board got a little banged up, but it all ended okay. Suffice it to say that we walked around the lagoon after that. heh. All I can say is thank God the train engineer blew the whistle before coming around the corner.
The surf there was pretty fun, but it was also pretty crowded. You really had to position yourself well to catch any of the good sets. And even then you had to intimidate people into not dropping in on you. Every wave, you had to prove you had the skill and power to run them down, and that you weren't afraid to if needed. That environment really pushed and polished my skills. But for the most part, there wasn't a lot of localism attitude that you find in most good breaks.
We also spent some time driving up and down the coast in search of other surf breaks. We surfed Huntington Beach one day. We were a little down the beach from most of the crowd, trying to keep to ourselves. I caught this one right and rode it in pretty far. One of the guys from the local pack caught a left and we ended up pretty close paddling back out. He paddled over and was like "hey dude, what kind of board is that?" like he was being all friendly and stuff. I told him it was an Escape (my shaper/sponsor at the time). He asked where it was from, and I told him South Florida. When I mentioned that he totally turned into demon man and started yelling lots of obscenities at me, basically telling me I needed to escort the board back to Florida, and especially away from his beach. He was splashing water in my face and trying to get close enough to attack me I suppose. Mind you that this is all happening while trying to paddle through waves (a couple of feet over head) coming at us. I was able to avoid contact and paddled down the beach a ways to continue surfing. I can say that I wan't impressed with the surfers in Huntington Beach :P. I would understand if I dropped in on the guy or something, but I was being respectful and they were just asses.
We made it to Malibu Beach on a really good swell. On the outside, it was double-overhead and wrapping all the way around the point. To this day, Malibu remains one of the thickest crowds I've ever surfed. The local crew was at the beginning of the point and there was no going over there without some bruises, or at least a lot of hassle. They would only ride them a little ways, so we stayed right where they would normally kick out and try to pick up their waves. This was right ahead of a really fast section that was difficult to make it through, so the crowd wasn't as bad. I was pretty good at getting down the line, so I could make it through most of them, after which, was the longest ride of my life, all the way to the end. Keeping people from dropping in on you was a challenge. You'd have to force them to back out from paddling by scaring them off, or physically pushing them out. It was an interesting experience to say the least. The waves were so long that my legs would start burning and I'd have to take little breaks. heh. At the end, we'd have to get out and walk all the way back to the beginning.
My friend John McBride came out to stay with us for a week, and we decided to take a drive down to Mexico to surf K-38s - a point break 38 kilometers south of the border. The California surfers we talked to said to make sure we got Mexican car insurance before venturing down there. As soon as we crossed the border, we stopped of at an insurance place and purchased two days worth of insurance. We weren't really on a schedule and didn't know if we'd end up staying the night or not so we figured we'd be on the safe side.
We Stopped off at Rosarito, just south of Tiajuana for a surf. I couldn't believe how darn cold the water was there. We had spent enough time just a few hours north surfing what I thought to be pretty cold water, until we got here. I had a full suit and was wearing booties, yet ever time I pushed under a wave paddling out, I got a full-blown icecream headache. I had never experienced water that cold before. What made it even worse, was that there were a couple of lifeuards out swimming up and down the coast with nothing more than shorts. At any rate, it was a pretty strong mid-break over a pretty shallow sandbar. We had a pretty good time, but it was short-lived since the water was so cold.
We started back on our gold of making it to K-38s. When we finally got there, the surf wasn't that great, but it was definitely rideable. You had to make your way down this sketchy cliff trail to make it down to the ocean, which was a pretty shallow reef. Since I had already spent a miserable session in Rosarito, I decided to sit this one out. Also, the only place to park was on top of a cliff overlooking the place, and I was pretty certain that if we left the car unattended, it, or its contents would surely disappear. I wasn't that worried about it since the surf wasn't that good anyway. But they all paddled out to say we made it there. heh.
We drove a little further down, but it didn't last long. Since the water was pretty darn cold and the waves weren't all that great, we decided we'd have a better time surfing back in Californai, where we were used to everything. Since we were all only 18 at the time, we stopped off at every little convenience-type store on the back to the border to pick up a beer. I was driving, so I didn't indulge, but the gang was having a good time.
So we make it back to the border station in Tiajuana, and we're waiting in the long line to get across. There are a lot of little street vendors there selling their wares. All of the guys get out to see what kind of bargains they can get, while I sat in the car inching forward. I saw a Mexican policeman waling from way up front and he came straight up to my car (just me sitting it int with four surfboards on top). He asked me for my license and registration. All I had was the rental contract for registration, so I gave it to him. He immediately opened it to the second page and pointed to the line where it said in big, bold letters "THIS CAR IS NOT TO BE DRIVEN INTO MEXICO!" Oops. Obviously, he knew what he was looking for. He told me that I needed to follow him so a policeman with better English could speak with me. I was thinking to myself, "self, this guy is speaking pretty good English already." I got out of the car and started YELLING for the guys to get back in the car, which visably pissed off the policeman. He tried to get me to leave them, but I held my ground and the guys finally showed up.
At the time, we didn't think we had much choice but to follow him. So we pull out of line and follow his car (with three of his police buddies in it). We followed them several miles away from where we were. They finally stopped under a desserted overpass. There was NOBODY around as far as we could see. The same cop came up and started telling us that we were all under arrest and that we were going to have to get an attorney to get the car out of the country, etc., etc. Meanwhile, the police car had backed up and gotten on the other side of the median. I was VERY distressed at the turn of event, but the three guys with me weren't nearly as concerned. They had, after all, had several beers on the way back to the border. The bottles of which were all over the floor of the car.
Finally, corrupt copper dude says that we can stay out of prison if we pay two fines... one for driving the car into Mexico, and another for not having Mexican car insurance. Aha! But I do have Mexican car insurance! heh. Apparently, he made it very clear that I had the wrong type of car insurance. However, he was willing to drop that charge against me, to just worry about the remaining $250 fine for bringing the car into the country. After a long while of going back and forth, telling him we had NO money (it's true, we didn't have any cash money left), I offered him my single $20 travelers check. He cursed quite solidly in Spanish at me for a few minutes. Finally, he found it in his heart to let us go with not pending charge.
After finding our way back to the border, we got squarely in the middle of the lines and eventually made it back to the good ole USA without further incident. So, if you plan on going to Mexico, DON"T DRIVE A RENTAL DOWN THERE. heh.
Other than a few other little trips around California, we spent our time in San Clemente surfing every day of the Summer. That fall back home, I had the most successful surfing season ever. I was ranked number one in the hardest division on the Treasure Coast, and felt like I could win anything.
Unfortunately, my pictures got wet somehow and stuck together. I soaked them in water for a couple of days and was able to get them apart. Sorry for the poor image quality, but that's all I have. I was going to try and crop the bad parts out and such, but I figured it'd just be better to see the whole thing.
