This book is a description of 99 (+/-) California surf spots based on my memories of them. It is part memoir, part descriptive listing of surf spots, part rambling musings. Perhaps in time as both humans and nature alter the coastline it will also become a historical document. The timeline spans roughly from 1977 to 1997. The distance spans over 700 miles from the Tijuana River at the Mexican border to the coastal redwoods of Humboldt County. Although surfing and surf spots are the core, it's also to be enjoyed by anyone with interest in the beauty of the ocean and wilderness on earth regardless of whether one ever puts a foot on a surfboard or even in the ocean. The descriptions are written largely free of any surf lingo that would prevent a novice ocean enthusiast from understanding but also detailed enough to be of interest and value to the traveling surfer in search of something new.
We all start from the same point on land. Some may just try the sport a few times and others will become obsessed to a degree shared by only the most committed. Regardless of the time spent or a level of proficiency, there's a common experience and feeling shared at the coast and much of that is the core of these stories.
Excerpts:
"He said to go, that it would be worth the hour and a half drive, 45 minute walk and the 800 yard paddle to and from the spot. I had checked the setup before and knew that he was not exaggerating the distance of the walk, but I could not imagine paddling 800 yards to reach the lineup. It was not an exaggeration."
"If I were going to be stuck on an imaginary island and could only take one spot with me it would be Black's"
"I don't know how legal it was. I set up my tent on a little bluff just west of Highway 1, but to get there I had to climb through a gap in a fence."
"looking at the surrounding hills and mountains... I felt at such peace and in love with the earth that only experience can convey the feeling. I am sure that others who have been there, especially in the evening as the sunlight is glowing on the mountains, feel the same as I."
"When I came back out onto the street, I walked into a near hurricane force wind. Sand and trash were flying everywhere. Soon the power went out and when I got back to my car I had to reevaluate just how safe my portable hotel was in this location. More than one large tree had already fallen, bringing down power lines across the street. I looked around and saw several other trees that could potentially fall onto my car, so I set out for a new, safer spot to spend the night."
"I was a bit sore from the previous session and sleeping in the car with two surfboards, a cooler, clothes and a wet wetsuit but I was completely fired up to surf this miraculous place again."
"I camped on the beach here several times until one night around 2:00 a.m., while I was sleeping in my car, I was awakened by a sheriff who told me camping/sleeping overnight there was illegal and that he "did not care" where I camped as long as it was not in his county."
"It is such a wonderful arena of sights, sounds, and sensations. The length of the waves combined with the constant energy flow and flawless form are often as baffling as anything I have experienced. Things like the Alps are certainly wondrous in their own right, but the temporary and constant evolution of waves gives them a certain precious quality of their own. It is things like barely making the most vertical off-the-lip with toes barely in contact with the board on the way down, then falling into twenty yard barrel with a deep blue wall and a silver curtain that is followed by a hard cutback into another barrel and coming out of that and hitting another two or three off-the-lips that must be experienced to be truly understood."
"Surfing is really the only place I have yet to experience such overpowering feelings."
