What is your earliest memory of the ocean?

Santa Monica. We lived in Burbank / NoHo area, about 30 miles from the beach. I remember my mom taking us for beach trips. (I also used to ride the buses through Hollywood, with an inflatible raft, by myself when i was just a little kid. Not in today’s world!)

It had a different smell back then, like fish and seaweed combined. When you were close you knew it by the smell. The beach was always magic to me. I too remember the sand crabs tickling underfoot. Time stood still. My mom would yell that my lips were turning blue, time to get out if the water, but i never wanted to.

Not pleasant at all, surprising I ever started surfing really. Huntington pier area early 50’s was there w/ parents and I was probably about 4 years old. In the shallow w/ my father and a bigger set wave knocked him down so he lost his grip on me. I was rag dolled by the likely actually tiny shorebreak and was certain I was dead. Fortunately he found and grabbed me in just a couple seconds and once the screaming hysteria stopped I was fine. YOIKS Wadda trauma HAH!

It’s interesting and not surprising that some of these are the power, the danger of the ocean.

Reality, and luck of the draw that day.

Fishing with my father a few miles off Bass Point , on Kevin Seckolds charter boat , out of Shellharbour…I was fine until the boat stopped…10 yrs old…first and last time I got seasick…never forget it…old man couldn’t stop luaghing .

HAH! Kayu, that brings back memories. Talk about “feeding the fish”!