Ventura has often been called a sleepy little town. For the surfers of Ventura that was a good thing. My friend Peter would come by at dawn, throw rocks at my upstairs window to wake me for an early morning surf… he wanted someone to surf with, at pipe no less. In 1967 hardly anyone surfed up there. Imagine that!
For the second weekend in a row I went to the beach at around 8 in the morning only to find no where to park. Inside point was full, the free lot was full and the fair grounds 2 dollar lot was full. Geez, and I have a year pass for the $2 lot that cost 75 bucks! No place to park. Well, I could pay $5 and park in the fair grounds main lot.
Last week there was a swell forecast, this week there were two surf events going on at the same time. One at pipe and one at the point. Last week I thought I’d go for a surf but gave it up for the crowd. This week I went to hang at the annual “C” Street contest for the finals. So I parked at Wave Front and walked back to the point. Honestly I never thought that one day there may be no place to park at the point because so many people would be going to the beach to surf…. or in today’s case, hang at a surf event.
There were some 80 contestants in the “C” street contest that included guys in their 70’s. Another thing… I never thought about guys in there 70’s surfing. Another 10 years and it will be me… that’s scary.
I wonder if there will be any places to park in 10 years? Maybe I could get one of those electric carts that I’ve seen a guy run up the promenade with. I could rig up a surfboard rack and putt right up to the sand with all my gear. Yeah, I won’t need no pickin’ parking space.
D.R.
This year each contestant at the "C" street contest was entered in a raffle for the board I made below.
2 comments:
Pave paradise put up a parking lot...I hear you Dennis. The parking lot a Fort DeRussy in Waikiki had an early bird rate, $5.00 all day if you parked before 8am. They did away with that for now and a two to three hour session can run you up to twelve bucks. Luckily you can park at the Post office on sundays for five bucks. Or walk from the Kaiser's/Bowls parking lot (which ain't too bad compared to the stories I hear of walking into Lower Trestles). A funny thing did happen the last few weekends though. One Sunday, late morning, the line up at the usually crowded Three's suddenly emptied out, leaving me and two other guys I know that surf there with the line up all to ourselves. There were a few tourists inside of us but they were'nt even a factor. The same thing happened out at Bowl's a few weeks earlier at about the same time. The amped early morning crowd disapated, leaving just a lucky few to enjoy the head high sets for a few hours to themselves. It's days like these that keep me going until the next magical day.
Aloha,
Derek
Derek, There is little better than getting to the beach, finding surf and an empty parking lot.
Funny after I did this post my wife found this website…
D.R.
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