My Story post 17

Those early days in Ventura were really great. I can remember coming down from the college after classes and trying to time the traffic lights from 5 points to San Jon rd. along Thompson so you’d never get a red one. After all, a couple red lights means you could miss a good set if the surf was good.

Afternoon glass offs sitting in my VW van waiting for the tide to drop some or come up some or, waiting out the wind. You’d think it would be boring, nothing to do but go to school for a few hours and then surf. The only time I’d get bored was when there wasn’t any surf.

There was this local contingent of guys, and a couple gals that would be down at the point almost every day looking for surf. And, if there was surf they’d be out there. Sometimes I wonder where some of them are now. Well, I know where a few are and there are a few still around and still surfing.

So many days surfing you’d think maybe I’d have some memories of some epic surf. I’ve got a couple but mostly the memories are general kind of things. Like enjoying fun surf with the local guys. Or, sitting in a guys van watching some pretty junk south wind conditions, the surf all blown out. Then seeing the wind die out and a sneaker set come through that would clean the place up, and within minutes the surf was clean and not a sole around but me and a surf buddy.

BTW, we mostly surfed what I consider inside point. Often called the cove now. We wouldn’t surf much above Figueroa St, and not to much up at pipe. Funny, I here pipe called pipes now days. Why I don’t know, but for the record there used to be this big pipe that dumped this black slimy stuff from the oil fields into the ocean at the tide line right at the edge of the Ventura river. That’s why the spot was called pipe. The surf would get good there but the water could be pretty ugly.

You know I can remember the point getting pretty crowded sometimes back in the day. But it was always limited to the area below Figueroa St. Now? Geez it’s almost spooky seeing the number of people in the water on a weekend starting at inside point and going all the way to Ventura river.

You could complain about crowds in the old days but even still there were always the local guys out and everybody would know one another. Yeah, I never surfed alone back then because even if there were only a couple guys out they were always guys I new.

D.R.