Not of surfing, but the ocean itself.
Curious what we have to say about this place that means so much to us (and is in such peril).
I was 3 years old when my mom drove us from Brooklyn to LA . That was 1955. I have a picture of me, my mom, and my brother on some cliff overlooking the Pacific. The next summer my grand mother bought property at the Jersey shore and I’ve been there ever since.
I grew up in the L.A. South Bay area, one of several thousand other kids whose dads worked in the aerospace biz.
My grandparents lived a stones throw from King Harbor in Redondo and the nearby beaches.
Grandad took me to the beach very early in life and started taking me fishing off the local barge when I was just a little bitty squirt.
Nana lived on Ruby and Catalina. Earliest recollection was running in and out of the water at Topaz. Started surfing at the Horseshoe pier in 1963.
Grew up around the beach/ocean my entire life, I have no one distinct memory of the first time, but have a ton of fond memories of the early days and a lifetime of great memories. I’ve been blessed.,
I have photos of me in diapers on the beach at Waikiki. Don’t remember any of that.
My first memories are of being on an ocean liner heading to Germany in 1961. The first memories of water was somewhere in Germany at a river where people were fishing.
It wasn’t until 1965 that I saw the ocean here in Hawaii at Shark Country at Ewa where my dad’s family leased beach front lots. We lived about a mile inland and it was a few years later that I was spending a lot of time in the water there. My dad’s family also had beach front homes in Nanakuli going back to my great grandparents, and we spent a lot of time between 1965 and 1966 on the beach there.
i dont have one disctinct ‘earliest’ memory but i grew up on a surfboard since day 1 so all my farthest back memories of the ocean are surfing tiny waves that i thought were enormous
I grew up in Trancas Canyon, from birth in '62 to 1972. I’m finding that my earliest memories blend in with decolorizing polaroids and are hard to tell apart, but I remember the beach more than the ocean, possibly because swimming at Zuma was usually too cold.
But I remember the coarse white sand, and zoning out as only kids do for endless lengths of time with the feeling of the hot sand on my ribs… making sand angels… letting the sand run through my fingers. I remember peeling the ends off of dried kelp bulbs and putting them on my finger tips, making witch fingernails. The less dried bulbs were leathery and ripped, the thoroughly dried ones were crispy and popped.
There were sand crabs in the wet sand at the water’s edge that tickled as your feet sunk down.
I remember playing in the blinding whitewash, when a loose board washed in and hit me in the head. My mom screamed at the teenage kid wading to retrieve it, who looked scared. I remember trying to intervene; I was OK!
(I think I was stoked)
All those memories like I said are kind of mushed together. But I have a singular memory of walking down to the beach at night with my parents. I remember being surprised the beach was still there. The moon was full, reflecting fleeting silver on huge walls of water, taller than we were on higher ground, great closeouts that shook the beach when they broke.
since birth-just outside of town in ventucky…
Long road trips from St Louis down to Florida…super soft white sand…horseshoe crabs…dad renting fat tire dirt bike and riding along on the beach…warm and crystal clear water.
Transplanted to Orange County and now have kids of my own. Curious to see how they would respond to this question. I hope they never take for granted the ocean because they have no idea what it’s like growing up landlocked (Mississippi river doesn’t count).
My mom used to take us to Santa Monica and Long Beach. We lived in LA. South Central areas. Canvas mats, titties rubbed raw, sunburned. I still like laying in warm sand with no towel and being covered in salt. Love the smell of Coppertone, too. Mike
like many here, there is not one lightning bolt memory because I wsa raised near the ocean and have lived within walking distance almost my entire life on east coast of FL… but some distinct first meories when reading the question are:
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Shelling w my parents in Naples and Sanibel Island on the west coast
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Swimming at the Hall of Fame which is beach side in Ft Laud
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Cook outs at the Pompano Beach pier w mom and dad as almost literally a baby… couldnt have been more than 3 or 4 yrs old
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Endless skimboarding, boogieboarding, snorkeling, catamaran’ing (if thats a word) and yes eventually surfing… on the Galt Ocean Mile at the Hilton/Ocean Manor/Ramada (the few public hotels that sat next to each other that started no later than age 6 (my boyhood home right across the street)
skimboarding was and still is one of my most vivid great memories for me, my first skimboard was homemade wood board that was given to me by the son of the guy who ran the concession stand at the Hilton… we ran that place as kids… more fun than a boy should be allowed to have
walking w my Dad to the beach to watch turtles lay eggs… that was an amazing thing the first time I did it… again, these are all memories between the ages of 3-10 yrs old at most
although my Dad ws never a surfer, he loved the ocean, snorkeling, scuba diving… and I owe this life-long journey to both mom and dad that decided to move from Houston TX to Ft Laud FL in 1971 (I was born in 70)… it might not be everybody’s definition of surfing paradise but it is an ocean paradise… we were blessed to grow up where we did and when we did in my opinion
When I was a kid camping at Atascadero, and my dad’s friend almost drowned diving for abalone at Moro Rock when the surf came up suddenly. Late 60’s.
For me it was immediately post WWII. My father was home from the war, and the family went to Mission Beach, in San Diego. Mission Bay, Belmont Park, Cotton Candy, sand, waves, kelp, the smell of salty air. All of it rolled together in one memory stream. I was five or six years old.
Grew up in Imperial Beach ,Ca.,first half of my childhood(Bell,Ca second half)… So close you could see the Sloughs break(California st. home)…I remember digging up hugh pismos while they were building the pier in like 61’(pictured : me at home on East lane in i.b. 1963).
Tijuana Sloughs, what a spooky spot to have in your earliest ocean memories!
Waikiki sometine before 1959 when my sister was born
we lived in an 2 story apartment building (still standing) on hobron lane as well as in Ft Derussy during those days and my mom woul dtake my brother down to the waikiki/ala moana with my uncle aunt and cousin
i was terrified of the water back then.
My cousin couldn’t even get me in a swimming pool with a life vest on.
in fact none of us knew how to swim until 1964 when we returned home to ewa beach
But we learned to swim at nanakuli near the old family homestead.
We used to go there on weekends with our cousins
Hi Oneula,
Any chance that the two story apartment building is on the corner of Hobron and Lipeepee Street?
I think it is still named the High Tide. Just curious, as I lived in those apartments for three years while going to UH. Quite a neighborhood in those days, with plenty of blue lights on pay day.
puamana
i think it is the building in the picture
i see it everytime I’m making my way back to downtown honolulu after a meeting in waikiki
you know the ala wai to ala moana blvd short cut coming out at hobron lane infront of red lobster to turn right on ala moana.
Actually is was pretty cool to watch from my bed room window…use to play/fish/net… in the sloughs all day… catching orange lipped corvina…shrimp…halibut…even a mako once…people would chase me and i’d lose them in the swamps…i had grown so acustom to being out in the sloughs that i became feral…then we moved to LA…It was like being a wild tiger caged in captivity…Aloha.
