"…My folks used to take me to the beach at Corona del Mar in Orange County. My dad and I were standing in the swash zone, 2 inches of white water wrapping around my feet and then flowing back to sea. I kept falling over as the backwash would gouge the sand out from under my heels. My old man gave me the single sagest piece of advise I’ve ever gotten that summer day in '54. “Son, you gotta keep your feet moving.” A metaphor for life, no?
It was that same summer when I caught my first wave. My dad would bail on my mom to body surf leaving her to keep an eye me. Being the little Coral that I was, it was easy to get lost in the crowd and work my way out to the “big ones” my dad used to ride. He taught me how to dive under the white water, letting the powerful chaos wash over my body safely hunkered down on the sand like a halibut.
I popped up from the last wave and found myself “outside”. A big lump of blue green jumped up and I turned and windmilled my arms and flailed my little legs toward shore. Instead of the ocean being inches from my face, I was suddenly looking over a watery cliff when I first felt the rush. It was like the whole Pacific Ocean was throwing me to the beach. I threw my arms out in front of me, holding my hands together in the “Superman Pose” my dad and everyone else used those days. That was it…flying over the water like a speeding bullet, Superman.
The wave broke and consumed me in white water. I held my breath and my pose until I felt the sand grinding into the front of my trunks, beached as it were…My head was filled with wonder. I must have laid there for several seconds, basking in the power of what I had just done. Then, way back in the far recesses of my little mind, I began to hear a quiet squeal that grew to a shriek. Something big grabbed my trunks and lifted me like a small suitcase up the beach. When it flipped me over onto my back I saw a man with an orange baseball cap and my mother crying. I croaked, “What’s the matter, Mommy?” She pulled the lifeguard away and hugged me like… like…well, like a mother that just lost her baby and then found him again. She swore that she would never take me to the beach again, then she swore at my old man.
The last thing I remember as we loaded the car was my dad giving me the thumbs-up when my mom wasn’t looking. I was blissed out with the power of that wave the whole way home. That feeling has never left me. I can’t figure out how anyone would want to give up that feeling. Sometimes it gets covered up with a lot of life’s blankets but the second I feel that power lifting me and hurling me toward the beach, it comes back strong. Flying like Superman…" Reprinted with permission.
My first “surfing” experiences were in Newport Beach. We lived in the valley and didn’t get to the beach too often, but every summer my best friend’s family would rent a place in Newport, on 35th if my memory is correct. We’d stay for two weeks and we’d boogie board all day long. I guess this started when we were 7 or 8 years old and went until we were teenagers (boy, those later years were wild!). I’ll probably end up with skin cancer from all the sunburns my Irish skin got in those days but all that time in the water got me going down the right path.
Eventually we graduated to skateboards and stand up surfboards and started surfing on the central coast and naturally I chose UCSB for college, kept it up during my 6 years in Japan (probably averaged 100 days a year) and now still surfing almost daily in and around Pacifica.
well some years ago, after years and years of summer hollidays without seeing a real wave my family decided to go to france. I was so stoked to see these huge waves. ( 2-4ft) As a guy (12yrs) out of the alps i perfectly well knew how to snowboard so i thought i just give it a try. So my told us to have some lessons. There was this guy a surfer from germany who gave some surf lessons. I reckon he thought i was some kind of a surf guru. He made a big spiritual thing out of everything. So when we managed finally to get into the water we didn´t know what to do. so we did what we thought would work. and suddenly it happened. a wave took my board and i was gliding with such a speed to the beach. it was magic. After several years with lots of surftrips. I came the second time to New Zealand. We stayed at Raglan . There was a big storm so we tried to surf the beach break for some days. After a few days of huge waves and messy conditions the weather became nice. The swell was nearly gone. Only the beach break had this perfect bank. My girl and I drove there early in the morning and surferd the whole morning till 12. As she paddeld out i took a nice clean wave a bit bigger than the others. I stood up and suddenly the wave began to spit out the lip in front of me. So i decided thats the time i go for it. I was riding backhand so i tried to grab the rail so i better fit under the lip. And Than it happened. I was in my first ever tube. Than it closed out and as i popped out of the water I saw my girl in front of me. She had seen every single part of it. I was so stoked and this stoke is stored in my heart for ever. The same day i managed to come out of the tube as well.
Fall of ‘56, PB, Ca. 9’or 10’ redwood and pine laminated plank, small rectangular skeg. Probably weighed 80 lbs. I remember the smell of the salt, the feel of the cold water and the stoke of standing up after riding mats for years. Took 2 of us to get it to the water. We rode soup every morning, then ran to PB jr. high to classes.Still stoked at 62, surf 4 months a year in Hi. The rest in rubber in Washinton and Ore.
This past June in Cocoa Beach, at 43. Why the hell I waited so long I have no idea. Living in Ohio probably has something to do with it. But now that I know about lake surfing…
I hope you hung onto that girl. Generally when you take you girlfriend/wife to the beach with you they don’t see anything you do in the water apart from go in and come out.
Many times as a young fella I’d come out of the water absolutely stoked after a great session exclaiming “Did you see that wave I was on, wasn’t it fantastic” only to be met with a blank stare as if to stay “What”
Still happens, but more understandable nowadays “I had to watch the kids”.
My absolute first wave ridden was on a surplus army air mattress, the spring of '67 when I was 12. My neighbors dad took his boys and I to Waikiki and we headed out to an area between the “Wall” and Queens. The waves would break up against and over the seawall there and you’d end your ride going over the wall into the protected waters inside of the wall (I guess it was lucky it was high tide). The rush of being pushed forward toward shore, skimming over the water had me hooked from then on. We “progressed” to drug store styro belly boards and plywood paipos, then that summer my dad brought home an 8’6" Bohemian pop out he bought for $25 from a poker buddy. I spent a lot of time pearling trying to catch waves on that straight rockered, round bellied thing. I sold it to a friend and upgraded to a 9’8" Wardy that I could barely carry (I was all of 90 lbs.). By that winter guys were appearing with 8 foot “mini guns” with pyschedelic glass jobs and my Wardy was soon a dinosaur. We were soon stripping down our tankers and trying to shape the tear dropped pintails that were coming into vogue. Mine ended up being a total dog, and it wasnt until some 20 something years later would I pick up a planer and give it a go again.
Yeah Hicksy she´s still my girl and i hope that will last for a long long time. Well I know perfectly well what you mean. Like You tried all day to do a new maneuver and than when it works for the very first time nobody saw it. Thats why this moment is so special for me. cheers clemens