Here's a few pics of me on 12/17/2014 at Cerritos. Big rights were booming off the point...score!
monoloco - 12-23-2014 at 07:55 AM
That swell sure put a crimp in my fishing.Beagle - 12-27-2014 at 11:22 PM
Awesome! Will be back late January. Hoping for something a little smaller while the GF learns.
Were they closing or were they peeling? I bet it thinned out the crowd!Beagle - 12-27-2014 at 11:24 PM
Awesome! Will be back late January. Hoping for something a little smaller while the GF learns.
Were they closing or were they peeling? I bet it thinned out the crowd!apple - 12-28-2014 at 10:51 AM
Is it really busy this year? Did Odile hurt the tourist season?shari - 12-28-2014 at 10:56 AM
ahhh...the stuff dreams are made of!surfhat - 12-28-2014 at 12:50 PM
Thanks chupacabra for the shots of that outside reef at Cerritos. There was a day back in the mid 80's when I used to spend a couple of wintertime
months in the area that a huge swell was closing out everywhere and outside Cerritos had the only rideable waves around. When I drove in, I saw a
large crowd of watchers lining the point with no one out. Pat Curren was on the beach after not making it out, along with some other notable locals
who had been denied making it outside. There was a friend from O'side named Sam who challenged me to try to make it outside if he made it out. No one
had made it at that point but sure enough he did. He was built like Doyle and had a large 9' plus gun that allowed him to slide right on out there. I
followed and timed the paddle out just enough to make it out.
Once out there, I wondered how I could get back in. I watched a few sets from the shoulder that to me looked like Waimea and were about as thick as
they were high. These were easily 4 times overhead and bigger and I saw Sam ride a couple before I took my turn. Somehow I managed to catch a few and
got away with making the drop and riding these so thick waves. It felt like survival was the goal. When I went in, the only choice was to ride as far
as I could before running into the lefts that were coming back at me at the beach break. That beach break section was easily 8' to 10' double to
triple overhead and top to bottom! There was little choice but to straighten out and try to get out of the way as much as possible before getting
blasted all to heck and making it back in. The sand felt so good once I was pushed in far enough.
I don't know how big that reef can handle but if that day showed anything there is not a limit besides being even able to make it out in the first
place. There was nowhere else that held the slightest possibility of being ridden that day. Thanks to big Sam for showing me the way that day. I seem
to remember a couple of others made it out before I came in but the timing was crucial. There was no surviving being caught by those outside sets. It
was all or nothing.
I would love to see photos of a similar day next time it happens. I believe that reef can be rideable at any size large enough to break out there but
the thickness of the waves that day were like nothing I have seen personally experienced in my fifty years of watching. Being in far enough to be able
to catch those thick sick sets was the ticket and for that, Sam showed me the way. What a day!
These days jet skies would be the way but at that time there was only paddle power and a board big enough. My small gun at the time was about 8' and
it felt much too short. Sam knew better with his 9' to 10' gun that day. If not for him making it out, I would have just been another of those
watching from the beach. Thanks Sam.willardguy - 12-28-2014 at 01:42 PM
were Noll and Doyle on innertubes drinking jug wine in the impact zone?
[Edited on 12-28-2014 by willardguy]woody with a view - 12-28-2014 at 03:40 PM
great story Surfhat! paddle power rules!surfhat - 12-28-2014 at 03:50 PM
Willard, no, they were not, but their worldly experience would have been welcomed that day when hardly anyone else could make it out. I know you are
making a funny at their expense but this was a serious day for anyone who was watching and even more for the few who made it out past those clean up
sets as they broke across that whole outside reef off the point. If not for Sam, I probably would have been just another of the peanut gallery
watching from the beach. Thanks Sam, for the memory of being able to see waves close up that were beyond anything I have ever seen from the water
before or since. I am sure Doyle and King could have shown the rest of us a thing or two that day had they been there and we all would have cheered
them on. I have seen similar sized waves on the east cape that they showed their stuff fearlessly and they deserve all the respect in spite of the
times when surfing with them was a real pita. They have put their time in and more than earned an extra wave or two when it is maxing out. Plus being
able to see them ride when the rest of us are barely surviving, was its own reward. willardguy - 12-28-2014 at 04:07 PM
my mistake, not mike doyle but kit horn! you old timers will appreciate this,
as told by greg noll. (sorry for the hijack).
"We usually threw a shop party on the day of Christmas Eve. One winter, just before I was scheduled to leave for my annual trip to the Islands,
people were getting out of their jobs early and stopping by the shop for a little Christmas cheer. Kit Horn came by to see if I would be available to
go to Lunada Bay in the next couple of days. Lunada Bay is off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and breaks only on a big winter swell. It's a big, steep
wave with a fast takeoff. Under the right swell conditions, the place could become very hairy. In 1963, we got several days over fifteen feet. The
bay was rock-rimmed and enclosed by a hundred-and-fifty-foot cliff from point to point, with only one small trail down to the water.
"Not many people have heard of Kit Horn. He was a good friend and schoolmate of Buzzy Trent's. And a frustrated big-wave rider. If you had asked
the guy what he wanted to do when he grew up, he would have said that he wanted to go to Hawaii and ride big waves.
"Horn was a b-tchin' guy, but he worked at some terrible gosh darnn engineering job at Northrop -- wore a suit and tie and large-rimmed glasses. A
tough guy, he spent all his free time running, pumping weights and getting in shape for the day that he would find himself in the Islands surfing big
waves. He never made it, though. He never really had enough time. The couple of times he did go over there he would miss the big surf and come home
totally frustrated by the whole deal. He wanted it so badly."
"So, at the shop, we got to drinking wine -- Horn wasn't a big drinker -- and talking about Lunada Bay. It was breaking at about fifteen feet. By
this time it was about three in the afternoon and we were getting pretty chit-faced. I told Kit that I had a special workout for getting in shape for
big waves. What you did, I said, was tie yourself into a big truck tire innertube, paddle out at Lunada Bay, get yourself right in the impact zone,
then try to catch a wave backwards. There, with your wine bottle and your innertube, you drink and wait for a wave to break on you. If you lose your
bottle of wine or if you quit drinking, you're automatically disqualified.
"Kit had drunk enough to believe me. And I was far enough along to be stoked on the idea. So we did it. We got two big truck tire innertubes and
two fresh gallons of Red Mountain wine and went to Lunada Bay. It was near dusk as we ran down the trail. We were fired up and the whole situation
turned competitive.
"We paddled out in our tubes and sat right in the impact zone. A fifteen-foot set comes through and pounds the living chit out of both of us. We're
laughing anyway, having a great time. Kit loses his inner tube, but holds onto his wine bottle. I'm getting a little concerned about him, but he
just laughs. He had drunk about half his wine. I think the only thing keeping him afloat was the half-empty bottle.
"By the time we decided to go in, the sun had gone down and I couldn't find Kit on shore. I'm walking along the beach, and it's pitch dark. I
finally find him in a tide pool. He'd drug himself there and was still lying face-down, his head pointing towards the ocean. He was real screwed up,
his face and body were a mass of bloody cuts. The tide was coming in and he was barfing as his head bobbed up and down in the tide pool.
"Kit was a big man, weighed a couple hundred pounds. I tried to roll him out of the tidepool but couldn't. The best I could do was grab him by the
ankles and drag him up the rocks, just to get his head out of the water so he wouldn't drown. I carried over a couple of big rocks, rolled one under
each of his armpits and told him I was going for help.
"I climbed up the path to the road and hitchhiked to a phone. I called Horn's house and somehow the message got through that Kit was lying face-down
in a tide pool at Lunada Bay. His wife just went beserk. She thought he'd drowned. At this point, the cops were called in.
"In the meantime, Kit comes to and starts walking up the trail. In the process of doing this, he slips and falls in some dog crap. So now he has
blood and crap all over him, and he remembers that a friend of his lives at the Point at Lunada Bay. All he can think of is looking up this lifelong
friend. After all, it's Christmas Eve. He stumbles into the guy's house and collapses on the couch, looking -- and smelling -- like chit. They call
his wife, and she comes to pick him up."
"For years afterwards, if the name of Greg Noll was spoken in Kit Horn's house, the woman would go into a total rage. I haven't seen the man since,
and that happened in the early '60s.
surfhat - 12-28-2014 at 05:02 PM
I remember Kit during the El Nino winter of '82 out at Swamis' riding a long red board 10' to 11' and wearing a helmet long before anyone else. He sat
further out than anyone and never caught one on the head like the rest of us did when these monster clean up sets would appear out of the fog.
Everyone was scratching for the channel which was to no avail that day. Kit picked up waves that no one else did that day and that is saying something
considering the hundred or so of us that were out. He was out near the kelp beds and still managed to catch a few while the rest of us were diving for
the bottom if we couldn't get around them.
So many tangled leashes it was a wonder more people were not seriously hurt. Kudos to Kit that day and to his sons who have carried on their dads
legacy.
I remember the coast highway that day had the traffic cops going nuts collecting all that opportunistic revenue from the illegal parking going on but
have to say the show was worth any citation. What a day!
I seem to remember riding 3 or 4 waves that day over three or four hours well inside of Kit and that was plenty for anyone. That Swami's could handle
the size was amazing and it was the only spot that was even ridable that day. I don't think I saw anyone else out anywhere, locally speaking. It was
just too much that morning for anywhere else.
Way to go Kit. The old man showed us all a thing or two that day on the clean up sets that we had the pleasure of watching before we dove for the
bottom. The usual channel was closer to Pipes than Swami's with a little permitted exaggeration but it was a very long paddle back to the lineup which
was all over the place. Peace out.
landyacht318 - 12-29-2014 at 01:00 AM
I respect Swami's, as a wave, but I'll never surf there again.
I missed the good old days, and now, it is an etiquette free zone. It is rare that someone can get a wave on a good day, and not be dropped in on by
several people, or have to pick a different line because of all the obstacles in the way and have the ride ruined and likely both.
No, Never again, I don't surf to get angry, and that unfortunately is what happens every time I've surfed it, and even watching it break stokes the
fires of my misanthropy when the hordes goto war.
But it can be so beautiful, and I wish I could go back in time, or perhaps take a thousand prozac and sit way way outside on the big days and get the
clean up sets everybody else takes on the head.
This was a few Fridays ago:
And here is a photo where I photochopped out the crowd. A medium sized set for this day, and two very stoked riders:
And the guy who forced this rider to straighten out, and ditched his board in such a dangerous manner, should be strung up by the balls, flayed alive,
and set on fire.
It would have been an incredible barrel ride, but for the board ditcher, and it turned into a beatdown instead.
One day somebody's going to set up a 50 cal on the bluff and go nuts with a couple magazines, and it won't make a difference to the size of the crowd
the next good swell.
I respect Swami's, as a wave, but I'll never surf there again.
Some spots like Swami's, Lower Trestles, and Malibu have been ruined for many years by overcrowding and a resulting breakdown in surf etiquette.
Lucky for us that Baja still has plenty of first-class, uncrowded waves!
When it gets big in SD, I usually opt for one of the Sunset Cliffs breaks rather than Swami's. Many more options and a more respectful, albeit
somewhat localized crowd.
my mistake, not mike doyle but kit horn! you old timers will appreciate this,
as told by greg noll. (sorry for the hijack).
