My story post 29, or what I remember about the winter of 1969.

I moved to Rincon valley and joined up with Wilderness in spring of ’69 but the winter of ’69 was pretty insane. We had a lot of surf that winter and some very serious storms come through Ventura.

What the storms did to the local surf breaks was pretty amazing. As I remember it, there was a big rain at the end of January and one near the end of February. The first rain deposited so much sand on Ventura point that there were literally no cobble stone rocks exposed from the mouth of the Ventura River to the pier.

The affect on the surf at the point was significant. While it lasted the new sand point provided by the storm made one long continuing wave from the top of the point all the way down inside. Usually there are a number of sections, sometimes make able sometimes not, but this new sand point had a wave that was as perfect as any I’d ever seen. Catch the wave at the top of the point set your edge for a driving bottom turn climb and drop, turn back, bottom turn again… repeat, repeat.

The other spot that got dramatically altered… for a short time, was Santa Clara River mouth. Again so much sand was deposited that a very long sand point formed on the south side of the river. The surf there was as good as any point wave on the map. It took some work to get to it because you had to cross the river, it got almost waist deep in spots but on the other side was the gold. I got down there a couple times with the local crew when in the afternoon Santa Anna winds had died down enough. Mild off shore winds and roping long rights for a good quarter mile…. what fun that was.

As more rain came things got pretty ugly. Eventually so much debris washed down the Ventura river and got deposited on the beach that it became impossible to even walk to the waters edge along the point. The water along the point was one giant mass of floating drift wood that stretched half way to the end of the pier. The Santa Clara river actually change its course, turned toward Ventura and ended up busting through the Ventura Marina washing the boats that were docked along the south end of the marina out to sea. Then the surf deposited the boats along the beach below south jetty.

We’ve had big rains a number of times since then that have made for great surfing. But, there has never been anything like the storms of 1969 yet.

D.R.

Storm surf at the Ventura Pier.