TO RIDE THE REALLY BIG ONES
By Corky Carroll
There is a line in a song that I wrote some years ago called “Big Wave Rider” that goes, “to ride the really big ones you have to have the hair.” Yesterday I was reminded about that by some dude who I was talking to on the beach after the morning surf session. He asked me what was the biggest surf that I ever saw here in California. I get asked that quite often so I thought I would write about the two biggest swells that I remember here on the West Coast. One took place in the summer and one in the winter. As we are still in the south swell season and at the end of summer I will tell you about the big summer south swell first.
It was August 19th, 1969. There was a huge swell that hit us that came all the way from a big storm off of New Zealand. The day and night before it was big and getting bigger. This looked to be one of the biggest days in years and years.
Mickey Munoz and I had talked about the possibility of surfing the notorious “Wedge” at the south end of the Balboa Peninsula. The Wedge is a body surfing spot and breaks almost right on the beach. The swell bounces off a jetty and doubles itself in size. At that time nobody had attempted surfing it on boards that we knew of. We figured that if the swell was really enormous and the tide was low enough it might be possible to surf it.
So that morning we got up at like 4:30 A.M. and drove up to check it. We wanted to get there at first light so if it was doable we could get out there before all the bodysurfers. It is a body surfing spot and we didn’t want to infringe on their territory. Unfortunately, it was so big that it was not bouncing off the jetty and forming the “wedge.” It was just huge walls breaking right on the sand.
So we jumped back in Mickey’s V.W. Bus and drove south to Cotton’s Point in San Clemente as fast as we could go. In Laguna Beach we checked out Brook’s Street and almost went out there. It was epic. But we knew that this was the perfect swell for Cotton’s and that would be the best call for this day.
When we got to the beach we looked out towards the line up we saw Rolf Aurness take off on a perfect wave that was bigger than any wave I had seen on a south swell before in California. It was easy four times his height and he is like 6’1” or so. It was a big wave. And perfect. He shredded the thing and his ride got us pumped for the session.
The hard part was getting out through the shore break. The inside waves were almost as big as the outside ones and were sucking out on the sandbar at the north end of the beach. That, along with a south to north current running at about a zillion miles an hour, make just getting off the beach a major challenge.
We jumped in the water way to the south and paddled our guts out to try and make it past the inside waves before the current took us up to the sandbar. To my disbelief and some sort of incredible luck we made it out. Only a few of us got out that morning and those of us that did had one of the best sessions in the biggest summer surf that I ever saw in California to this day. We stayed out for hours and hours and it took about a week for my arms to recover from the intense paddling we had to do to get back out after every ride. The last wave I had took me past all the houses in Cypress Shores and on that one I knew that I was done; too far to paddle back out. Mickey was one of the top surfers in the world, I was at the peak of my pro surfing career and the next June Rolf Aurness won the World Championship in Australia. We all still look back on that day as what we call in surfing “epic.”
Next week I will tell you about the biggest winter day that I remember here on the West Coast.
ROCKIN' AND THE ROADSTERS ~ THE WAVE
by Corky Carroll
This week I am going to continue with my “Growing up in North County” series with a couple of emails sent in by readers. This series is, I think obviously, stories about growing up in this area and are taken from letters from readers. This first one this week brought back many memories for me and comes from a dude who goes by “Weekday Jim from Dog Patch.”
“I grew up in Long Beach learned to surf at “Ray Bay. Remember, then you learned by watching, as there were no surf schools. I was 14 yrs when I started and by 17 was at H.B. Pier, Trestles, Malibu and Rincon during Easter vacation.
There were a couple guys I use to hang with. One was a big suave looking dude named Gil Farris and the other was a surf looking rat like me named Leroy who happened to live in Surfside, at least part of the time, with other surf rats in a dilapidated apartment - that was so cool.
There was an older dude, maybe 24/26, named Joe Barnett who lived down the street from me on Bennett Ave., right across from Wilson High School. He looked like a bronze surf god, built like Vic Tanney (remember him?); long sun bleached brown hair and a full beard that matched his hair. And what made him a really cool dude was that he lived in his mothers garage (he wasn't married), had the most bitchin’ model ' A ' roadster and a 46 Ford woody plus his clear board had pictures of tiki gods painted in black. I was always trying to goad him into taking me surfing with him. When his roadster would pull up to the bluffs at Huntington, that’s where he liked to surf, all eyes were upon us, I was totally stoked.
Well, one day he says, ‘Hey I'm going to Trestles tomorrow ya wanna come along, we'll take the woody?’
How cool is that; cruzin’ P.C.H., I'm in heaven. We arrive at the old highway pull off for Trestles and start hiking when another car pulls up with some funky looking boards tied to the top. Couple guys and girls get out and they fit the mold of inlanders. We called them hodads.
Joe and I start walking the trail. Well, what trail there was. You almost had to beat your way through the brush to advance towards the beach. There had been a recent rain and everything was really muddy. There was a large pond that had accumulated from runoff from San Mateo Creek. My cool buddy Joe had a great idea. Since the hodads were not far behind us, let’s ditch our boards, jump in the pond roll around in the mud, then re-roll ourselves in some leaves and hide until the others showed up. I swear he looked just like a creature from a lagoon, he said I did too, but he really looked the part. When they finally showed up we jumped out at them, they screamed like little girls and took off running back to their car with us in slow pursuit. We kept our camouflage on in case we came across any Marines. They would sometimes haul you in their truck way down the beach, dump you off, and it would be a long walk back.
Anyway, back to the hodads, we didn't see them all day, nor anyone else. Had the session all to ourselves. Wasn't life beautiful back then?
I’ve been living in San Clemente for the past 11 years; still hit the waves at Dog Patch with the crew Monday - Friday. Still loving life. You know Corky we’re blessed we are still able to do what we love.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I agree with Weekday Jim on that one. The next little thought came from a dude that goes by “Costa Mesa Doug.” This one brought back some great memories too.
“I thought if you ever ran out of cool surfing news from the 60’s you could bring up the catering truck that use to be just North of the HB cliffs, at the South end of Bolsa State Beach. I can't remember the gal's name, but she was very cool. And after you got to know her, and earned her trust, she would let you take a Coke, and some eats and then pay her back in one or two days. Before moving to this area we use to drive from Riverside every weekend to surf. Yeah, it wasn't 909'ers then because the area code was still 714...so we were still cool. ;-) But that truck was a lifesaver when it came to having to have something to eat. And many would hang out there when it was just dirt just to jaw, rest and eat. Just a thought and that truck always brings back great memories.”