Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz, 1996

surfer fires across the point at Da Lane, in Santa Cruz, California.

I took this photograph with my Nikon/F2 that has a 230mm x 65mm Vivitar telephoto lens.  It’s a shot of a longboard surfer riding the west side famous surf spot called, “The Steamer Lane”.
The Lane is a very local wave and you better be respectful of that or you will get hassled by them. I surfed there from 1992-2008, off and on, as I mostly resided in the east bay of San Francisco. That’s where I worked as a journeyman plumber on new, commercial construction sites, all over the bay area. The spot is a fun and juicy right hand point wave and on bigger swells it has an outside west peak that will hold a short rideable left. The place is big and spread out so that a bunch of people could be out and the surfers are dispersed throughout the line up and shoulder zones. It can get pretty hairy out there when there are too many folks in the water.
I was never really stoked on having a session when it was that crowded, so I would have a nice siesta in the back of my truck. This place was going off all the time in the warmer Spring months. That’s when the swells changed from the cold, northern hemisphere to the relatively warmer southern hemi swells. I remember south swells so big that the US Coast Guard would forcibly pluck you from the water and then you would  paddle back out when they left the area.

It happened to me on one, huge swell in June 1996.  I asked permission to board the CGV, those Coasties thought that was hilarious, that a long haired dirtbag surfer would use proper sailor decorum to board their vessel.  I pleaded with them to not set me on the boat dock, where I had a mile and a half paddle back up the point to my truck in the parking lot.  I must have made a good impression, they let me off with a strong warning, and after a properly crisp salute to the Skipper, I dove overboard, and I was gone, surfing “Da Lane” once again, so stoked.

Changing of the guard. 1982

 

Me surfing my Jacobs Fish twin fin at Hermosa Beach, California. Photo taken by Bill Mac Faden, 1981

Australian, Simon Anderson and his Thrusters in the 1980s.

Simon Anderson was the dude who blew the door wide open in the early 80s.
He is responsible for the real power surfing to begin. There were designs that worked all around, although the Thruster design has had staying power for more than thirty years.
I grew up in a very hostile localized surf region of Los Angeles. Up on the Hill, there were people who were stuck in the 60s and 70s. They did not play nice with anyone holding new forms of wave riding vehicles and wearing bright colored wetsuits charging down the steep cliff trails to surf. You were headed for some big trouble.

So I started out with a multi colored rail “swallow tail fish” design from Jacobs’ shop. My Uncle John flowed it to me for my eleventh birthday, cuz he surfed for Hap and he grew up surfing In Hermosa Beach. It was one of those twin fin designs that has since re-surged to popularity. I must say that it was one of the best shapes I have ever rode, it worked in anything from small to medium size waves. Although it was not the standard approved board in PV. At Haggerty’s I was rocked and heckeled at by some locals and they are heavy dudes. Funny thing was, I lived on Via Del Mar, PVE and could see my house from the line up when it was good size. So I had to conform to the norm, and get at Eddie Talbot’s main shaper, Gumby, to shape a single fin totally clear single fin, White, no colors and certainly Kook no cords!

  When the three fin revolution happened it happened overnight, almost as fast as the Body Glove day-glo colored wetsuits hit the scene back in 1982. Another weird tick in PV was that no one was to wear a wetsuit other than the O’neil Animal Skin black with red, green, or blue in the “V” portion down the back and chest. If you were to surf in Palos Verdes, then you better tow the line, or get hassled. If you parked your a car on the Drive, then it was keyed up, and the tires would be slashed. That was the locals law, and if you broke their rules, you had to pay some heavy dues.  

I paid some dues surfing up on the hill.
  When Simon’s three finned Thruster design came to America from Australia, it was like a big bright light snapped on, and the whole crew realized that this was a happening design for the type of point break waves we were all surfing. So it made sense to change the game and let the PV surf culture evolve. Well that was the in good theory, yet there were still die hard Neanderthals dudes, who just would not give up the black and white single finned ghost of the past.
When finally the change came, local shapers started absconding the templates from surfboards Simon Anderson shipped to ET Surfboards in Hermosa Beach. In P.V., garage shapers were producing the design with some great results,  Talented shapers like; the Trident brand of Zen Del Rio, Bob Stassi’s “Bali High” brand, Artist/shaper Chris Lundy’s tiger stripped surfboards from the North Shore, with the impeccable Joe Bark designs , and John” Pineapple Head” Francisco’s far out log shapes and custom color jobs with all the 80s splatter you could ever want on a stick.

They were all into shaping thrusters, some got into four fins and even later on “swallow tail fishes” like my5’11″Jacobs. Surfboards with custom color air brushing was a big deal way back then. The change was here to stay, although the locals never really did warmed up to the Valley Kooks and Herms all that much. Still sometimes you hear in the news and in local rumors about these young punk kids being big jerks to wandering non local surfers.

Pity that we all can’t get along, and be stoked on just surfing waves…

G Land, Java, 1988

Another fine sunset after surfing the best left hander in the world.

 Grajagan Bay, Java, G-land,1988
Have you ever been half way around the world and find yourself in a steaming hot jungle about to get your ass handed to you?
  Well that is just what I did when I was twenty-one years old and I was going all alone and all the way in. I took a flight to Dempensar, Bali one Summer in 1988. It was a gift to myself for the three years of hard work I put in at art school. I was quite stressed by all the stuff Otis/Parsons was dishing out to me. Yeah, you may think that is a nice way to spend a Summer right? Well yes, it was a trip that changed my life for ever. The life in south east Asia is way different from what I knew growing up the south bay of L.A. It all started at the airport of LAX. It is one of the biggest airports in the world, and perhaps, I was unprepared for what I was getting myself into. I had with me a Quicksilver fanny-pack. At a certain moment I was on the phone, yeah in a booth no less, this was pre-cell phones don’t cha know. I am frantically calling my roommate, who had just left me at the bar in the terminal and now I had lost my little pack and all my documents in it. I was about to go binipshit about it too. When a dude about six foot tall walks up to me and asks me a question;

“Don’t I know you?”
I look at him red faced and blathering, almost losing it and say, “Nope'”, in a meek voice and I look to the ground.

He tells me that he too is a big “Dead Head” fan and if this by any chance is my pack with a “Stealie” on it.

I looked at him relieved and say,

“Yes and I just love the Grateful Dead and thank you so very much for picking it up and returning it to me.”

He then introduces himself to me as Dave Hilton. He was from my home town and he was going to Bali on the same flight as I.  We chat for a while about all things PV (Palos Verdes) and the surfer dudes we know in common. He says he has connections in Kuta, Bali, and if I was so inclined I could tag along with him.

I made the flight and was well hung over after eighteen hours in a tin can with smoking is still a perk and yes I took that seat cuz it was cheaper. I look around and I don’t see Dave anywhere, when a curtain gets pulled back and see him in first class fast asleep in a, little did I know he had two valiums and they put you out like a light, thanks Dave.
I get off the plane to the most bustling, humid, stinky place I have ever been.  It made TJ look like an amusement park. I am being asked for everything under the sun and here Dave saunters up and says,”come on with me”.  It get my gear and board-bag and pile into a bemo/taxi. We drive past palm trees loaded with coconuts and we end up at the Agung Cottages. He says that the brother of the king owns the place and leaves it at that. It is twelve bucks a night! I am saying “heck this is cool”. So we stow our gear and I take out my 6′ 10′ Brian Buckley pin tailed thruster and find my starboard fin is busted completely off the bottom of my brand new board.  I came prepared with all the materials to fix it, although my resin is the purple, boat lamination kind and it’s not the right color for a beauty that is my primary stick. I’m so jet lagged that I attempt to get the angle right and fail in my attempt.  Dave says, “Hey man, let’s get some dinner.”
 We end up going to all the night clubs and after bars and get back in about one in the morning, I am a wreak. That next morning we are off to rent motor cycles.  We get some petrol and off we go into the unknown. I have never driven on the wrong side of the road so it’s a bit tricky. I am savvy enough to let Dave lead me through the dense traffic and  the whole time we’re holding onto our boards with one hand and the handlebar with the other. I get a sweet Kawasaki 600 Enduro, it’s a medium sized bike and has enough power to spare.  We are headed up into the Buket Peninsula.  As we ride along I see all things alien to me eyes. There are long walking bands of Hindu worshipers, in white head bands and batik sarongs, holding fruit and the smell in the air is full of thick, exotic incense.
We get to a patch of road that looks deserted and Dave parks his bike just off the road in a small field. I do the same, and pull off my sweaty helmet, and he says,”Come on, lets go.” He says with a grin.

 We walk in a single file line down to this long buliding at the edge of the cliff called a warung, and without a “hello, how are you”, this native dude takes hold of my board bag.  Being the ugly American I get a bit heavy with him and have this tug of war over my bag, when Dave tells me that, “it’s ok man .They are the board handlers and that is there job.”

For $4 a day they will wax, fix any dings and keep your board for you, so you never have to ride the road with your board while you are visiting there. Pretty cool set up too, the Warung is overlooking the surf break and it’s set up just like my home break back in the Cali. The surf is good size, so we decide to get something to eat and then go out for our first afternoon session. I am so not in my element, as everything is given to you with a smile and the people are very polite and mellow. I’m enjoying the laid back atmosphere, but the little monkeys are a different story all together. These buggers will pull your hair and mess with you and your stuff relentlessly. They are protected like past relatives living kharmic lives as monkeys, so you have to be cool and just let it all go.  And I do, I climb down into “The Cave” and the board handler comes up with my board and he says something I can never did understand, so I bow to him as Dave did, just a moment before.

  We paddle out and the waves are becoming more frequent with the tide rushing out, so I duck dive a few and I know I’m going to be dragged along the reef by the surge tide to the outside. I get to the line up and the crowd’s light, but there is a steady stream of surfers in the meat grinder, they are  just paddling around and getting it hard on the head. So I go a bit off to the left and see if I can pick  an outside rouge wave.  I’m not prepared for the way these freight trains break. Top to bottom and hard as a rock. When they explode along the reef you can feel it in your bones man. California is usually a soft, rolling type wave and not the Hawaiian type that are heavy peelers. If you are too slow and take time getting up on your feet, you get rolled over like a drunken sailor on a Saturday night bender.  I am just that sailor and I’m dragged underwater about a football field long when I pop up down the line somewhere near the start of the line up to Padang-Padang, unharmed.  I paddle back up to the point for more. I finally get my dream wave, and let me just say, if you surf goofy foot, try Uluwatu, and if you suck it will grind you to bits. I was hooked on this fast moving hollow, left hander and it was my Indian Ocean church for a week.

 Dave, later on asks me,”Hey man, I am going to take a week in G Land, wanna go?”

 That question Dave asked is why I traveled to Indonesia, and this area’s on the main island of Java. After a long bemo ride through the night, we end up in a small village next to a river, inside of the Garagan bay. We pile on board a boat resembling a canoe with a long shanked out board motor maned by the best extras I have ever seen for a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. These guys were rough and had huge curved knifes strapped into their sarongs with head wrapped batik scarves, really menacing looking dudes yo. I find out that they are Muslims. We make it out of the shore brake in the middle of this big river and head east towards our destination. As we approach I see that the tide has fallen and these waves are braking big into Kong’s Point, the skipper says that he can not get any closer to the beach, so we just go over the side with all our gear and paddle in. My stuff is drenched, but the contents are in a trash bag, cuz Dave told me that we would be dropping into a wet entry. Thanks again Dave. The surf was huge and it took no time before we would paddle up to the point to get some for ourselves. I was dialed in on the place before I even went into the water, although nothing is like the first time you paddle out to new break. It took a few days to really feel comfortable about the place, the sweetest spot along this long, hollow grinding wave was “Money Trees.” It is one of the best waves in the world and that picture I took is not very good at telling the story, but it’s all I have of that place and time.

I have to say that my time spent in Indo changed me for the better. The international surf community is a diverse bunch of men and women. They are from all over the world and they can be either very pleasant or really dickish. You just have to know where they are from to know for sure. We had some dudes from Maroubra, a surfing beach in south Sydney, Oz. These dudes surf all day and party all night and can get really pugnacious. The unfortunate part is when they keep up their localism in the universal waters of G Land. It’s not the place for a mean international crowd, criminey, it’s in the middle of the bleeding jungle already. Only tigers, wild boars, snakes, and whatever else lethal is living there and they are the only true locals.  I can remember the vibe, it was all good, till these Australian maniacs decided to heckle a cool dude from Ecuador, he was a dark skinned fellow with a nice, easy smile and he was not as skilled as the rest of us in the water. That is why the Ozzies were getting in his face.  I befriended him and we surfed together and when the Mabra mob came to pay their respects to him, I just piped up and said, “Hey why don’t we just share the waves bro”?  They paddled right up in my face, and looked me up and down asked me where the heck was I from.  I said, “PVE, in LA, CA.”  They laughed in my face and splashed water at me, then turned and went away.
We meet up in camp that night and they are semi-drunk and get real up close to my face again and say, “Hey Sepo, so you like blacky folk so much don’t you”?
I reply that, “It makes no difference to me what the color of a dudes skin is to me, as long as we are cool to each other it is not an issue, man”.
I’m still mystified by the racial prejudices of the Austrailan surfers that day. I was never brought up to be that way, and I was told by my dad to stick up to bullies and thugs.  Perhaps when you find yourself in the jungle, you might find folks who are ignorant and and intolerant of race, but never lose sight of the fact that this injustice is everywhere, and you have to stand up to it. They will back down if you don’t back down. It got late and they went on their merry way so I went back to my bug-screened bunk in the tree house and Dave is there reading a book. He tells me that those “guys are heavy dudes where they come from and if they really wanted to they could have messed me up big time”. He goes on to tell me he holds a black belt in Kung Fu . Man, thanks Dave, for telling me about those guys.  Not all surfers from Maroubra have that heavy vibe, and thanks for that too.

Mahalo.