`Santa Cruz Cool' and water warriors
Santa Cruz surf culture survived World War II, although the surfers who returned to their Surf Club at Cowell Beach were ex-servicemen seeking marriage, kids, income, and especially time for surfing. The club included a beach volleyball court, horseshoe pit, and had invented the “wine cooler.” This wine punch was mixed in a washtub at their beach shack, with at least three popular flavors. One was called a “Sand Kahuna” (meaning Beach Big Shot). But their favorite drink combined sauterne (sweet wine) and 7-Up, called a “Sancapo.”
Surfboard technology was advancing to balsa wood laminated with fiberglass, and hither-to-inaccessible wild water was sought out to expand the surfing frontiers. Al Mitchell was one of the first to surf Vue de l'Eau Cove, and surfed there so much that Mission Hill Jr. High kid Johnny Rice joked it was “Mitchell's Cove,” a name that stuck. (Johnny Rice went on to become a renowned surfboard craftsman, and Al Mitchell founded the local Junior Lifeguards in 1966).
In 1946, a 41-year-old jobseeker showed up at the office of Boardwalk Plunge director, Skip Littlefield. The well-spoken scholarly veteran told Skip, “I'm a lifeguard, swimmer and surfer. Mutual friends in Hawaii suggested I drop by. My name is Sam Reid.” Littlefield already knew of his career. At age 17, Sam started surfing in Santa Monica in 1922, then went to Stanford while surfing in Santa Cruz. After surfing with Duke Kahanamoku in 1925, he left college for Hawaii, where Kahanamoku taught him Dukestyle surfing, the Hawaiian language and Polynesian customs.
Sam surfed Hawaiian style, on a Santa Cruz redwood surfboard. He won Hawaiian surfing championships in 1928 and 1932. The Bishop Museum listed the best Hawaiian surfers as Duke Kahanamoku, Sam Kahanoko, Johnny Pais, Pua Kealoha and
Sam Reid.
In May 1931, Sam was the first to surf a 40-foot wave in Hawaii, the highest on record anywhere at the time. (In December 2023, surfers rode 60foot waves at Mavericks.) Sam was friends in Malibu with surfboard innovator Tom Blake, who introduced the tail fin. During World War II, Sam served aboard the USS Samuel Reid, named for his heroic great-great-grandfather. He returned to Stanford at age 40 to get a political science degree, and was reintroduced to Santa Cruz surfing, which he said was equal to places in Hawaii. One of the mutual friends who recommended him to Skip was Duke himself. Littlefield made Sam captain of the Municipal Lifeguards.
It was a rare bunch who managed to surf the wild waters of Steamer Lane, and in 1946 Reid surfed with Wes Reed (different spelling), Sentinel pressman Don “The Mighty Bosco” Patterson (a stuntman for the Plunge Water Carnivals), Leland “Scorp” Evans, and Fred Van Dyke. They regarded Steamer Lane as a perfect training ground for the 30-foot-plus waves of Oahu's North Shore. Sam became a familiar figure along the cliffs at Steamer Lane, calling out the largest wave of the set to the pack in the water. Over the pounding surf, his voice would ring out “Oooutside! Nuuummmbah Thareee!”
Fred Van Dyke remembered surfing Steamer Lane in the `40s and `50s for its solitude, with only a few other surfers. He said you could catch a wave, and ride it with a sea lion racing at your side and a Chinook salmon jumper in front of you. There were two seal rocks in those days, and the sea lion population was rather territorial, providing a gauntlet at times to Steamer Lane. There was one harbor seal who liked to sneak up behind Fred, and when Fred waited for the next wave, would come and put his front flipper on his tailblock, as if to say “I'll wait with you.” It was adorable! Then there was the time Fred was on lifeguard duty at Cowell Beach, and suddenly there erupted from the sea a stampede of sea lions onto the beach, inundating the sunbathers. This was a major breach of sea lion behavior, causing consternation among the beachgoers. But the sea lions were equally bewildered at this close encounter. Fred soon learned even surfers were fleeing the water. Turned out they were escaping a seal-hungry pack of migrating orcas who beheaded 200 seals that day.
Cold water
In the 1930s and 1940s, local surfers had trouble staying in the ocean for more than a halfhour, due to the frigid Alaskan Current turning their skin blue and rubbery. They resorted to second-hand sweaters, sometimes treated with oil (a nerdy look for surfers), but they preferred 1890s wool bathing suits, which were 15¢ each at Goodwill. Then in 1959, Jack O'Neill opened his Cowell Beach surf shop where Dream Inn now stands. He'd had the same trouble keeping warm while surfing in San Francisco. He tried a frogman suit, but it was hard to slip into without baby powder, and tore easily. He tried rubber-coated underwear, and PVC foam suits, which constricted his maneuvering.
Then when O'Neill discovered neoprene airplane carpet padding, he got some sheets and assembled them with a soldering iron. This suit worked perfectly, with the addition of a women's rubber swim cap to prevent “ice cream” headaches. But he feared once he'd sold suits to five friends, the market would be saturated. Nonetheless, he started the O'Neill wetsuit business in 1952, becoming the first to manufacture and sell wetsuits. The Bodyglove Co. also claims to have invented the first wetsuit, although they went into business in 1953. O'Neill learned that Berkeley physics professor Hugh Bradner created a prototype neoprene wetsuit in 1950 for military use, but the Navy turned him down, and fearing there was no other market, Bradner never patented it, nor contended for recognition.
In 1951, the city carted away the old Club House. At the time, local surfers weren't seen as “cool,” wearing swim sweaters, or grandpa bathing suits, while driving obsolete Model T Fords and clunky station wagons. Yet the tight-knit surfing community didn't care what outsiders thought, maintaining a “Santa Cruz Cool.” Since they didn't cave in to convention, their “oldfashioned look” soon became the peak of modernity, as old Fords became Hot Rods, old station wagons became Woodies, and modesty swimwear begat the wetsuit.
Surfer monuments
Chuck and Esther Abbott fell in love with Santa Cruz, and came here in 1963 to retire from their career as Arizona Highways photographers. Sadly, in 1965, their 18-yearold son Mark drowned in a surfing accident at Pleasure Point. His parents wanted to do something to commemorate his life. He had a fondness for lighthouses, but Lighthouse Point had none, replaced in 1948 with an automated beacon on a scaffold. It resembled a prison guard tower, surrounded by a cyclone fence topped with barbed wire, making the beacon look like the searchlight after a prison break. The Abbotts got permission for a beautiful brick lighthouse on the Point, designed and built in 1967 by Ifland Engineering. Now the Mark Abbott Lighthouse could watch over the emergence of Steamer Lane and Mitchell's Cove as major surf spots.
Yet it was frustrating that the city saw surfing as an oddity peculiar to Santa Cruz, but nothing worth protecting, because landlubbers thought surf breaks were all the same. During the battle to save Lighthouse Field from a massive hotel and West Cliff Drive highway, surfers put out a bumper sticker to “Save Our Surf Sites!” hoping to prevent development from a ban on surfing at Steamer Lane. The Coastal Commission killed the hotel plan, and a Lighthouse Field Committee was formed to turn it into a park.
Yet when the preliminary draft of the Lighthouse Field State Beach General Plan came out, it stated that no significant history occurred on Lighthouse Point that warranted a park interpretive center. I wrote “The Illustrated History of Lighthouse Point, Santa Cruz” in 1982 to be sure the committee was informed of the lighthouse keepers, field owners, and surfing community the site represented. (I didn't know at the time of the important all-Black 54th Coast Artillery unit stationed there in World War II). When the committee wouldn't budget a museum, surfers Dave Dye, Boots McGhee and Dan Young in 1985 started promoting the idea of a Santa Cruz Surfing Museum to tell the story of local surfing, hoping to educate the public that this is a valuable local industry. And what better place than in the Mark Abbott Lighthouse? Only AFTER it opened in 1986 did they realize this was the world's first surfing museum solely dedicated to that subject.
That year the Santa
Cruz Surf Club celebrated its 50th anniversary with a 1986 reunion. They noted the loss of Bill Lidderdale, and proposed some kind of recognition. As it was considered in 1987, a monument idea became grander and more inclusive, until Bob Rittenhouse and Doug Thorne proposed a perpetual memorial “dedicated to all surfers, past, present, and future.” In 1988, out of 33 designs proposed, the public chose one by Thomas Marsh of San Francisco and Brian Curtis of Santa Cruz. Inspired by the famous Surf Club members photo, the monument depicts in bronze, not some famous legend, but the average Santa Cruz surf kid, standing in front of one of the many boards David Steward and Bill Grace crafted. The pricetag was $65,000. Later in front of the Surfing Museum, came a monument donated by the Kawananako and Marignoli families, honoring the three Hawaiian princes who brought surfing to the mainland in 1885.
The Santa Cruz ProAm surf contest was held in 1967, and soon the area was hosting a variety of others, with Santa Cruz one of the top three California surf spots. Then Surfer Magazine in July 2008 listed the 10 best surf towns in America. No. 1 on the list was Santa Cruz, which they called “The REAL Surf City, USA.”
This was after Huntington Beach trademarked the term “Surf City, USA” as its exclusive nickname. After Santa Cruz were listed:
2. Haleiwa, Hawaii, 3. Encinitas, Ca., 4. Paia, Hawaii, 5. San Clemente, Ca.,
6. Kill Devil Hills, N.C., 7. Malibu, Ca., 8. Montauk, NY, 9. New Smyrna Beach, Fl., 10. Ocean City, NJ. Placing Santa Cruz in the company of the best surfing spots only magnifies the honor.
Further reading
For a vivid description of Santa Cruz surfing, check out the novels by Jim Lucas, who has written for Surfer Magazine, Longboard Magazine, etc., and newspapers including the Sentinel. “Waves Are Calling” and “Mountains to the East” can be found at Two Birds Books, 881 41st Ave, or on amazon.com. Frank Perry's excellent “Lighthouse Point” book, has a couple of chapters related to local surfing.