MORE KILLER DANA MEMORIES

By Corky Carroll

A couple of weeks ago I did a piece on Dana Cove; also known as “Killer Dana.”  That was the name for the beautiful cove below the city of Dana Point before they put in the boat marina  in the 1960’s.  I got so much email from readers who also grew up in those times, and had their own memories of that magical place, that today I thought I would share a few of them with you.

From Larry Collins:  “Dana Point was also my favorite surf spot on the coast. Attending Cal Poly Pomona, in the early 1960s, I would hit Dana Point during the summer and Doheny during the winter as often as I could get away from school. I could always count on those spots for good, consistent waves. My ‘54 Ford Country Squire “Woody” often struggled to climb that hill when loaded with six guys and six boards.

I remember we surfed together at Dana Point on one occasion. You had just returned from a first trip to the East Coast and talked of the experience while we were sitting outside near surge rock. The surf that evening was just big enough for takeoffs next to surge if you didn’t mind playing it close to the boulders on the ride in.

I surfed Dana Point for the last time in the late summer of 1967. As I remember, it was the weekend before they closed the point and started building the breakwater. I still have 8mm home movies (now on DVD) of the occasion. It was small, gray and crowded.  Everyone there was trying for a last go-out. “

From Larry Bender:  “Growing up in Long Beach in the 50’s, my parents always had me and my brother around the water   A couple times each summer, my Dad would load up the family and hook up a 12 foot “travel trailer” behind his ‘53 Chevy and head for the parking lot at Dana Cove.  We’d camp for a week, free, in the parking lot.  My brother, who was probably 16, would surf the point and I, 9, would snorkel in the cove and boogie board on a homemade piece of plywood.  We’d fish off the old pier and sit around a fire at night.  And that one lane road in and out of the place!  When it was time to leave, my Dad would send us to the top of the hill to keep any cars from going down.  He told us to signal when it was “safe” and he’d hit the gas and we all prayed he would make it.  Always did and we couldn’t wait for the next trip to a simple piece of summer fun.”

From Don, from Orange:  “Your column today about “Killer Dana reminded me of my surfing days in the late 60’s. A great time of change in society and in surfing. I still had my trusty 9-6 Wardy at the time, but my friend Danny had a very nice Hobie Corky Carroll “Mini Model” with a psychedelic paint job.  We spent a lot of time at Doheny State Beach during those days. The harbor was being built because there was a jetty at the north end. I never got to surf “Killer Dana”, but Doheny was my personal favorite surf spot for a number of reasons. First, you had a choice of three different breaks at the same beach, which must be pretty unique. First Spot, I think for goofy footers, Second Spot for the masses and The Bone Yard (north end) for a more “tubular” break. Which brings me to the second reason, which was the nature of the waves at Doheny. They didn’t really “crash” so much as kind of roll over. Which meant we could surf some pretty big waves without being basically killed. Then there was that great reverse wave at high tide. The waves would roll up the beach and start back out, causing some very awkward (hilarious) wipe-outs. Lastly, there was the rustic vibe of the area. Back then, we entered right off of Coast Highway and parked in woodsy area laid out with logs. Dana Point was pretty far from urban OC at the time.

One last thing. At the end of another great day at Doheny, we gathered up our stuff and were headed for the “surf wagon” (my dad’s ‘55 Chevy wagon-too bad, not a Nomad). We had to walk between two cars, one of which was a Porsche. Three guys were standing there leaning on the other car. One said “Don’t ding the Porsche guys”. I think that was you…..”   (yep, that was me….. The glory years when I went in style instead of by thumb.)

DANA COVE

By Corky Carroll

Last night I was sitting on my deck having the normal nightly chit chat with my pal, the “Iguana,” and trying to decide which tequila I like better.  Don Julio or Herradura.  They are pretty close price wise and I have grown fond of both.  I give the Iguana the “El No Rico,” (really cheap rot gut stuff)  because he has no clue of the difference.  He chews on cigars all day and night and I think his taste buds are permanently destroyed.  That and any chance of his teeth every getting close to white again, or even yellow.  As I was seriously pondering the question at hand the subject of “Killer Dana” slipped into the conversation.  Soon a flood of old memories came flowing out of both of us like honey out of a honey bear. 

I used to absolutely love Dana Cove.  There was one little road that was kind of steep and wound down the side of the cliffs into a little gravel and dirt parking lot nestled into a pocket at the north end of the cove.    There was a small fishing pier that went out at the inside of the surf break.  The point offered a great wave on a really big south swell.  This was the infamous “Killer Dana.”  There was a huge rock that you would sit next to and these big lines would come marching in out of the south and suck out over a boil caused by a bunch of shallow rocks.  From there the wave would line up all the way to the pier and beyond if it was big enough.  On smaller days it wasn’t such a “killer,” but was a lot of fun.  The rocks ate many a board back then as we did not have surf leashes yet.  

On the south side of the pier there was an outside break that they called “the cove.”  For the most part it was kind of a big mushy thing but at times had a little bit of a lineup to it.  One of the really cool things about both the point and the cove was that the winds where almost always dead offshore.  The way Dana Point is set up makes the normal afternoon westerly winds turn straight offshore down in the cove and pretty much all the way through Doheny State Park to the south.  Lorrin Harrison and Ron Drummond used to love riding the cove in canoes as well as Hobie and the crew on their catamarans.  The point was better for surfing though.

Some of my favorite early memories of Dana Cove involve my eighth and ninth grade girlfriend, Theresa Thompson.  Theresa and I went to school together in Seal Beach in seventh grade and then she moved to Dana Point.  I used to ride the Greyhound Bus down from my house in Surfside to visit her.  One of our favorite things was to hike down to the cove.  It was kind of one of those romantic sort of deals.  Then one night I got a ride down with my ninth grade art teacher, Eddie “Mooks” Droan.  Mooks was a pal of Bruce Brown and went to visit him.  He let me use his VW bus to go see Theresa.  Naturally we drove down to the cove to be even more romantic.  The bad part was I didn’t know how to drive.  When we tried to come back up the hill I kept shifting to third and forth gears and stalling it out.  Every time I rolled backward down the hill Theresa became less and less impressed with my manly driving skills.  Finally, after about an hour and twenty or thirty hill climbing attempts, somebody came along and clued me in to stay in first gear.  Who knew?   This is how “Killer Dana” killed by first real romance.  After that Theresa started looking for a dude who actually knew how to drive.  But, we always had that night in the cove…..”

I was devastated when they decided to turn this amazingly beautiful place into a boat harbor.  Yes I guess that it is a perfect place for that and I am sure all of the residents of the town at that time were delighted.  But the surf community lost a real jewel at that time, both for surfing and for the beauty and tranquility of the place. 

THE RIGHT IDEA         

By Corky Carroll

Every now and then I come across somebody where I just think to myself, “This person really has the right idea.”  Maybe it’s not always a person, it could just be one of those things in life where ya think, “That’s very cool.”  In any case I had this kind of thought  the other day while surfing with some old friends that I have known since I was a kid hanging out with the Hobie crew down in the Dana Point area. 

It was Walter Hoffman and John Creed.  Walter is one of the real pioneers of surfing.  He was a big wave rider in the 1950’s.  Along with George Downing, Peter Cole and Buzzy Trent this guy charged giant point break waves at Makaha Beach, on the west shore of Oahu.  He was one of the great surfers on the planet in his youth.  So here he was the other day charging down the line on a pretty good wave at a remote spot in deep dark Mexico.  I was paddling out watching him and could not help but think that this dude is pretty darn old and yet still has a real fluid style and goes for it.   I always enjoy it when there is somebody in the lineup older than I am.  Walter is 79 years old.  I saw him do a nice off the lip and trim down the line with the style and grace that most of the young guys I see surf have not even figured out yet.  It made me smile and also feel like I still have a lot of years left in me. 

Then I see John Creed take off riding a fairly small board and get covered up and come out like he was a kid at pipeline or something.  I am not sure how old John is, but he must be in his 70’s or close to it.  He used to star in many of John Severson’s surfing movies in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  He was known as “Speedo Creedo.”  At that time he was one of the hot young  “goofy-foots” on the west coast.  The part I hate about him now is that he is one of those dudes who does not look his age.  He looks younger than me and I have to be ten years younger than him.   John is one of those dudes who stays in surfing shape.  There is a difference between “in shape” and in “surfing” shape.  Guys who pump a lot of iron and stuff like that do not get in surfing shape, they get too stiff and thick.  Surfers require a different set of muscles and need to be flexible and quick.  You can see that in John Creed, he has that little bit of cat like quickness about him. 

So I am sitting out there and it’s a really beautiful day, the surf is great and we are thousands of miles from the California crowds and freeways.  These dudes are both smiling every minute and really enjoying the whole experience.  It makes me happy to be around them.  Too much of the time you see guys who should be as happy as clams at high tide yet they have a huge scowl on their face and are more intent on grabbing as many waves as they can and being overly agro.  They miss so much of the great experience.  

Both Walter Hoffman and John Creed have been great surfers for longer than most of us have been alive.  They have been there and done all of that.  And here they are grinning from ear to ear and surfing their hearts out at an obscure reef break in the tropics like two kids on safari.  This is the true spirit of surfing.  These dudes HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA. 

So I come cruising in the house feeling great and just being glad that I am alive and still surfing.  My wife, the extremely kool Kika, looks at me and asks, “What are you all beaming about?  You must have had a good surf session.”  All I could say is that I just got reminded of what it is all about.  She gave me that semi understanding look and handed me the best egg burrito that I have ever eaten.  God, it’s good to be a surfer.

ALTERNATIVE  SURF CRAFT 

By Corky Carroll

Today I paddled out at my favorite spot for a little morning session.  As I was sitting in the lineup waiting for a set to come along I noticed that there was a girl out there in a kayak who was chit chatting with some dude on a kneeboard.  It kinda occurred to me that was a strange combo.  I guess the different surf factions are cohabitating these days.  Ya never know.  There are so many different surf riding vehicles in the water and sometimes the riders of the such don’t exactly get along like good brothers and sisters of the sea.  The shortboarders don’t like the longboarders and both of those groups don’t like pretty much anybody else.  You have the SUPs (stand up paddleboards), the surfskiis, kayaks, kneeboards, boogie boards and bodysurfers.  

I started on one of the old fashioned canvas air matts.   Man, talk about your bad rashes.  Those puppies would tear the skin right off of you.  We kids would try to surf on just about anything that would float.  Old pieces of plywood with nails sticking out of them.  Row boats.  Anything.  This was long before boogie boards came along and gave everybody a nice soft fun learning tool. 

I still remember the day Tom Morey came into the Hobie Shop in Dana Point with his first batch of “boogies.”  I was working that day.  He had these funny looking spongy thingies and told me that these were gonna be the future of surfing.  I would never be one to doubt Tom; he was of a far more advanced thinking than me.   But I wasn’t so sure it.  The Morey Boogie then took over the world.  Heck, they are probably riding boogies on Venus by now.  

So anyway, we now have all these different kinds of things to ride waves on and the riders of such are all out there scrambling around trying to catch waves.  The problem is that there are not enough waves to go around.  In a perfect world everybody would take a turn catching a wave.  But we don’t live in that world.  We live in the super agro man eat dog world of wave rage.  The SUPs, wave skis and kayaks can catch more waves than the rest because they use paddles and can move through the water faster and catch waves farther out and easier.  Longboards have the same advantage over shortboards.  So on and so forth.  Many of our surf zones are festering with fear, loathing, hate and terror these days.  We all want the advantage and some of us get angry at those who hold it over us.  I know I hate it when somebody paddles past me and takes every single good wave just because his board is bigger or he has a paddle in his hand. 

I don’t have an answer to all of this.  Everybody has the right to ride whatever they choose I guess.  I just don’t see why they can’t seem to understand that all the waves are mine.

HAPPY SURFOWEEN

By Corky Carroll

I have always loved Halloween. I mean really, who cannot love a day when it’s cool to go up to complete strangers’ houses and get some free candy? What a great concept. One year I dressed up as Ed McMahan and had a beer mug instead of a candy bag, thought maybe I could score some free brews. But nobody seemed to get it and put candy in the mug instead. Oh well, it was still good. Halloween is about the only time I ever can get some “Dots.” Dots are those gummy kinda candies, I guess the grandfathers of all the new gummy stuff. You used to be able to buy them at the movies, but not anymore. All you seem to be able to get now are those sour things that kids seem to like but make my fillings hurt. And they cost like fifty dollars a bag. What is it with the movies these days; a trip to the candy counter requires going into escrow. See why Halloween is such a good idea? You can score enough candy to sneak it into the movies for like six months. And you can get those little boxes of Dots still.

Choosing the right costume is always a challenge. The key thing is to make the people think that you are a kid. That way they toss a bunch of goodies in your bag. So a mask is normally a good thing. A six foot two, three hundred pound monster can be believable with the proper mask. But you can’t let ‘em see your face or they will know that you are an adult and not some huge kid or something. A mustache and a beard gives you away every time. I used to have a very cool “Cow” outfit but I outgrew it. Well, didn’t outgrow as much as it started to look like a pregnant cow and it got embarrassing. People would be asking me when I was do and all that. Humph!

And, as an extra-added bonus, you have all the great Halloween parties to go to tonight. And, on top of that, seeing as how you will be in disguise and nobody will know who you are, you can get away with stuff that you never could at a normal party. Wanna be a total jerk? This is your night. Or maybe you normally are a total jerk and this could be your night to be cool, just to check out how it feels. I was thinking of that, but…….. naaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Also going on today is the Senior Olympics Surfing Contest at the Huntington Beach Pier. This is a great event to go check out. I was gonna dress up as an old guy and enter it this year. But then I looked in the mirror and realized that I didn’t need to dress up as one, I am one. So I backed out as I figured that I would have to answer too many of those same questions. Like, “when are ya do?” Better to watch all my pals battle it out instead. The competition starts at 7:30 this morning. They even have a costume heat. If you see a pregnant cow out there it WON’T be me. Honest.

One thing that I kinda wanna throw in though, just to make sure that you are going to be reading my column NEXT week, is to ask you to please be smart when the party is over tonight and you are getting ready to jump in the car and drive home. The one costume you do not want to be wearing is a squished person with a mangled car wrapped around your body. Don’t take the chance. And also the person you might run over in the process could be me. How bad would you feel if you killed a poor sweet pregnant cow? Really bad. So don’t do it. Take a cab.

Have a fun and safe Halloween. Check out the Senior Surf Olympics if you can too. Scare ya later alligators. Hey….. I got it. This year I am gonna be a “Crock…. Adile.”

THE NEED FOR SPEED

By Corky Carroll

I was sitting on my deck last night chit chatting with my pal. The “Iguana,” and a friend of ours from Indiana named Mike. Mike is into cars. He likes ones that have a lot of power and go very fast. The conversation ran to things like going into corners at over a hundred miles an hour and sets of brakes that cost twenty grand. Twenty grand for brakes? Wow, those puppies better stop you on a dime. Mike is into muscle cars. The Iguana, whose fastest vehicle in his life was probably his Schwinn three speed back when he had his paper route as a kid in Seal Beach, yet is an amazing conversationalist, kept the facts coming with a series of questions that amazed me that he knew to ask. You never want to take a trip with him driving. Grannies pass him and flip him off for going too slow. Heck, cows pass him who are just out for a little mosey.

While all this talk was going on my mind started to wander into how this very subject had a lot to do with my views and what I really like about surfing. It’s the adreniline rush. Surfing is many things to many people. It is a great form of relaxing. It’s fun. It’s a very soulful form of artful expression done physically. And, it’s a thrill sport too. If you want to make it that. I love that part.

Adrenaline is a hormone produced by the adrenal gland in the body of many animals. This would include surf rats like me. When it is produced in the body it stimulates the heart-rate, dilates blood vessels and air passages, and has a number of more minor effects. Like it makes your eyes open wide and tends to coax you to scream things like “ahoooooooo!” Adrenaline is naturally produced in high-stress or physically exhilarating situations.

In surfing the faster you go the better it is. Speed makes everything easier. You can turn better and your confidence is greater with momentum. In small surf there is always the need for more speed. In big surf its already there and you just need to control it.

I like the thrill. It can come from taking the drop on a big sucking out barrel or simply pulling off something at a critical moment. It gives you a rush that HAS to make you smile. There is nothing like that feeling when you come screaming out of some major tunnel and you are peaking with excitement. Everything in your mind and body are just going “yessssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!!” I love that feeling.

When teaching beginners I always try to explain to them that going faster is better. And a bigger wave will move them faster than a tiny one. So in reality a bit bigger wave is better. Most of them do not want to hear that as anything over one foot seems to look like Mt Everest to them. Now I don’t mean that they should start on thirty-foot waves. But a nice three-foot wave will move them faster than a six inch one. And most three-foot waves are non-deadly. So I tend to try and coax my students into grabbing the bigger ones. When the board is moving faster it becomes more stable and it easier for them to stand up and also learn how to turn and maneuver better. Speed is good. I have seen some huge adreniline rushes on the faces of many first day surfers when they actually catch a decent wave and get their first real ride. It can be a life changing moment. After that first taste it can become addicting. Hence you often hear the term “adreniline junkies.” It’s like better than any drug you possibly could take.

In surfing sometimes you lurk on the cutting edge of raw fear. The art is to ride the emotion and not let it take you over. If you can hold it together you can pull off just about anything. If you let it control you then you eat it. This holds true with people just learning and maybe on a wave bigger than they planed on as well as with the best surfers in the world dropping over the ledge on seriously gnarly waves that actually could kill you. You don’t, or lets say at least you shouldn’t, do that kinda stuff unless you are both physically and emotionally prepared for it. A momentary hesitation can be disastrous. Ya gotta want it. Really want it. Have a burning need for it.

So these dudes are rambling on about 400 zillion horsepower Cameros and I am thinking about surfboard design and what would constitute a “muscle board.” I have always liked cars like Corvettes because of the feel of power. Maybe the sound too. I was one of those kids who put playing cards in the spokes of my bike to make it sound cool. Surfboards don’t make much sound but the right one on the right wave can certainly give you that same feeling of power.