Book Review: Waves and Beaches: the Dynamics of the Ocean Surface (1964) and Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography (1988)by Willard Bascom

The life and work of Willard Bascom has an outsized influence on our lives as a surfers. A bulk of the research and adventuring he has done has greatly contributed to our ability to predict swells and read surf forecasts. Bascom was not a surfer, but he understood waves probably better than most surfers do. After all he is the author of the seminal text in oceanography, Waves and Beaches: Dynamics of the Ocean Surface (1964).

Waves and Beaches was always lying around my house as a kid. It was also at my grandfather’s house, and my Uncle John’s house too. I remember reading it first when I was about 12, the year I also got my first 3 channel weather radio and became utterly obsessed with surfing. I would go to sleep to the sound of the robotic female voice calling out the readings on the San Francisco and Monterey Bay buoys and outer waters. The way the voice said “buoy” sounded like “booty”. We now have web pages for these buoys, and I offer forecasting classes on how to read them.

The most important chapters in Waves and Beaches for us surfers are Chp III: Wind Waves, Chp IV: Waves in Shallow Water, Chp VIII: The Surf, and Chp IX: Beaches. The other chapters are also interesting and worth reading, but they have more to do with wave theory and measurement technologies, including those created in laboratories to study ideal waves. Bascom was not the first to discover how to measure and predict ocean waves. This honor goes to Harald Svedrup and Walter Munk, two European expats working at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA in the 1940s. During WWII Munk was an admiral in the Austrian Navy and when the Anschluss — Nazi takeover of Austria — came he didn’t want to become a Nazi so he fled to America where he took up his position at Scripps alongside Svedrup. The US Navy hired them to come up with a way to measure and predict waves in hopes of greater success during amphibious landings. Svedrup and Munk developed the equations that explain how wind transfers its energy into the water to create a variety of ocean waves. By monitoring the velocity of winds generated by storms at sea they made it possible to accurately predict wave heights and intervals, measured in feet and seconds. We call any significant wave activity generated by winds swell. Of swell Bascom writes:

As waves move out from under the winds that generated them, their character changes. The original wind waves are said to decay. The crests become lower, more rounded, and more symmetrical. Their form approaches that of a true sine curve. Such waves are now called swell, and in this form they can travel for thousands of miles across deep water with little loss of energy.

In more formal language, these waves are “periodic disturbances of the sea surface under the control of gravity and inertia and of such height and period as to break on a sloping shoreline.”

The usual range of period of swell is from six to sixteen seconds, but occasionally longer periods are clocked. The average period of the swell arriving at the U.S. Pacific coast is slightly longer than measured in the Atlantic. This difference arises partly from the much greater size of the Pacific, in which more long waves can be generated in larger storm areas, and partly from the greater distances the waves must travel across the Atlantic continental shelf before they reach the shore—in which the longer period waves are attenuated (62).

If this sounds boiler plate from one of my newsletters, it is for good reason — I take a lot of my knowledge about waves and swells from this book. For example here we see that 6 seconds is the smallest number required for waves to have enough energy to form into swells that break on our shores. For this reason I am always urging everyone to look at the swell intervals with as much intensity, if not more, as one does the wave height. 3ft @ 4 seconds is just wind chop, and does not constitute surfable waves. 1ft @ 10 seconds, however, is totally surfable, at least here on the Atlantic side of the US. As Bascom notes, swells that form in the Pacific tend to have larger heights and intervals. This is also why I always urge people to learn to read Surfline’s swell graph, which shows every swell in the water. Don’t just pay attention to the one that is tallest! Look for the one with the largest interval. Speaking of charts and graphs, Waves and Beaches is full of them. Take this one below which describes how much wind is required to generate certain sizes of ‘sea’ for example:

This helps us understand the intensity of winds required to kick up real swells. The chapters Waves in Shallow Water, Surf, and Beaches help us understand more about how the waves we surf interact with the bottoms they break over. One of the most important concepts to grasp is refraction:

Refraction simply means bending. As waves move into shoaling water the friction of the bottom causes them to slow down, and those in shallowest water move the slowest. Since different segments of the wave front are traveling in different depths of water, the crests bend and wave direction constantly changes. Thus the wave fronts tend to become roughly parallel to the underwater contours (70-1).

Refraction is literally the process that allows us to surf ocean waves. As the waves bend according to the contours of the ocean bottom, the parts that are over the shallowest bits of water break first, causing the rest of the wave — the bit over the deeper water — to stay open. We say the ‘peak’ is that area where the wave breaks first and the ‘shoulder’ or ‘face’ is the part that stays open. He elaborates this in the chapter on Surf where he gives us the key equation of breaking waves:

…At a depth of water roughly equal to 1:3 times the wave height, the wave becomes unstable. This happens when not enough water is available in the shallow water ahead to fill the crest and complete a symmetrical wave form. The top of onrushing crest becomes unsupported and collapses, falling in uncompleted orbits. The wave has broken; the result is surf (159-60).

Bascom uses the scientific vocabulary of ‘plunging’ and ‘spilling’ to describe what we surfers call ‘tubing’ and ‘mushy’ waves alternatively. We can all agree with Bascom that, “Plunging breakers are the most impressive (162).” But most impressive also means more violent or heavy, which translates: difficult to surf or for expert surfers only. Spilling or mushy waves, on the other hand are much easier to ride. And at the time Bascom penned this work, “spilling waves are much favored by surfers (163).” As surfing and surfboard design have progressed it no longer remains the case that spilling waves are preferred by all surfers, but it does remain the case that spilling waves are best for beginners and for the art of longboard surfing. Certain bottom contours and tides — long, sloped bottoms and slightly higher tides — favor the production of spilling waves over plunging ones — think Rockaway at a medium to higher tide on a 3ft @ 8 second swell, or Cowells Beach or 36th Ave in Santa Cruz on a low tide, or surfing’s homeland, Waikiki, of which I do not know the best measurements, but which stirs up iconic images of long, spilling breakers, beach boys, and tourists gliding to shore for hundreds of yards.

In terms of measuring waves and swells using modern technology, the history is quite recent and Bascom’s life and work is at the center of it. Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography (1988) is Bascom’s memoir. As the quote on the front says, it is a stunning tale — almost hard to believe that he was involved in all that he was and that his life took him to the places that it did. I read this book on two registers: a.) historically; b.) critically. These registers are not necessarily separate. When I read such a work I can look first neutrally at the historical developments and technologies and events and understand how they’re connected, and at the same time I can apply a critical lens in light of newer developments in social scientific research and theory.

Willard “Bill” Bascom was born in NY 1916 and grew up in Bronxville. His father abandoned his brother, Bob, and he with his mother. His mother, whom he calls “remarkable”, was a journalist and a teacher. Bascom was 13 years old when the Great Depression hit. By then he had already developed an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit. He counts the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, exploring the marshes near the Hudson while playing hooky from school, and frequent visits to the American Museum of Natural History as early influences on his thirst for a life of adventure. When the Delaware Aqueduct project started in 1937 — this supplies the water to NY city — there was a shaft near Bascom’s home and he asked the foreman for a job helping dig out the tunnel. This was his first experience using engineering equipment and explosives, and being in deep touch with underground layers of the earth. In 1938, after his brief stint tunneling in NY, Bascom decided to get a more formal engineering education at the Colorado School of Mines. Bascom was expelled due to an altercation with the president of the school months before graduating, but later, after all of his achievements, was awarded its Distinguished Achievement Award.

Bascom somehow escaped fighting in WWII — he doesn’t mention how in the book — and when the war was over in 1945 he had just ‘finished’ mining school. Having taking a trip to CA, he found himself dining at Spengler’s Seafood restaurant in Berkeley with some engineering friends. That night he met a man named John Isaacs who was a civil engineer working at UC Berkeley. They struck up a conversation and that night Isaacs offered Bascom a job with Cal surveying the waves and beaches off the Oregon coast. Those were the days. An engineer had just quit Isaacs’ team, and Bascom seemed like a good guy for the job. Some people find careers like this today, but very few do so without loads of college debt or some arduous application and interviewing process. As it continues to be the case, many of the choice jobs went to able-bodied white dudes who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. None of the main characters in Bascom’s book fit a different profile. The book contains anecdotes about his wife and the wives of the other scientists, and gives account of natives of the various lands he visits, but they are peripheral to his adventures.

Bascom’s first assignment off the Oregon Coast is nothing short of insane. He and his colleagues had a small fleet of amphibious trucks, called dukws, that UC Berkeley acquired from the military. They would drive on the highways up the coast and out to the beaches. Then they would motor these truck boats into as big of surf as they possibly could — 10-40 foot waves — and ‘survey’ the waves. Surveying included taking pictures of the waves from above, from shore, and from the water, and also driving through the surf and completing ‘soundings’ where they’d try to stick a weighted measuring line in the water to see how deep the sand bar was at different points. For this they would have to time or take sets on the head. Basically Bascom and his buddies were big wave surfing truck boats off the Oregon coast in the 1940s and attempting to measure the heights of the waves, depth of the bottom, and angles of the faces of the waves while doing so.

When that wave overtook us, the dukw would start to surfboard. I would heave the sounding lead ahead and to one side into the trough; as we passed it, and the line became vertical, I could read the water depth in the trough. Then the dukw’s stern would begin to rise as the crest overtook us, and bow tilted downward. As its slope increased, our seagoing truck would begin to slide down the front of the breaker that was peaking behind us, and the driver would fight desperately with the throttle and rudder to maintain its position at right angles to the wave front. While running before the wave, we were traveling at twice normal speed, often with the bow plowing the slick green water of the trough ahead, sometimes up to the windshield (9).

After this first mission Bascom is assigned an even crazier one (it will turn out that his missions simply get successively more nuts). Isaacs and his team had been working on a project with the US Navy to measure the seismic and aquatic waves generated by nuclear bombs they continued to test in the South Pacific after WWII had ended. Bascom was asked if he wanted in on the mission. Seeing it simply as another adventure, he accepted. This sets the tone for Bascom’s attitude towards the military more generally — he thinks some of their motives and methods are fishy, but he is not going to lose an opportunity to further ocean science. In order to measure the waves from the explosions Bascom and colleagues set up a buoy with a cable running to shore, linked to a recorder box inside of a fallout shelter.

The first of such tests was on the Bikini Atoll. Bascom notes that the US Navy had all the inhabitants relocated before they set off the bombs, but that this had some negative repercussions for the islanders. For one, the Bikini Atoll was rich in fruit and bird and fish life before the tests. The island that the natives were relocated to was not as hospitable to human inhabitants. Years after the testing, deeming it “safe” to move back, some of the islanders were re-relocated, only to fall sick of radiation poisoning — so much for that. Bascom does not scold the US military for this or outright take them to task for it. It is clear, however, that he was critical of the practice, however much it furthered his own career. He did not have to put it in the book, but he did. Bascom himself suffered from cancer. When he stopped doing the wave tests in the South Pacific, his cancer finally went into remission.

What is nuts to me is that much of the technology used to measure waves offshore was developed during these nuclear tests. Our ability to simply check the buoy pages and predict swells cannot be historically unlinked from such events. The specific technology has to do with the cables and the recording devices. In the Oregon wave surveys they were using observation, photography, and sounding techniques to measure the waves, and now they were experimenting with buoys and cables.

The cable experimentations continued after the nuclear testing. Some still relied on man made underwater explosions using TNT — here Bascom’s mining and oceanography work really coalesced — but others were just attempts to moor a buoy out at sea and to have it successfully read the swells that came through the water. One such attempt occurred in Monterey Bay where Bascom set up shop on Cannery Row for a couple of years in the early 50s. He hobnobbed with likes of Doc Ricketts and John Steinbeck. Steinbeck and he actually became quite good friends. Bascom and Isaacs were trying to set up a buoy in the Monterey Bay and run a cable through the dunes to a recording station onshore. This mission was thwarted by the large, unpredictable surf that rolls in there. I know this surf quite well — it’s what I grew up surfing in. There is a funny anecdote in this part of his tale about the Army sending out some of their aquatic men to help Bascom with the job, but Bascom warns them that the water is really cold and that the surf is too dangerous to try it. They ignore him and send their guys out anyhow — they all nearly drowned, but made it back safely, and didn’t help with the cable one bit. Wetsuits had not yet been invented.

It just so turns out that Bascom was there when wetsuits were invented at a Navy pool in southern California. He was also there on the cutting edge of the first SCUBA equipment and the first underwater photographic equipment. For many of his missions he did the diving, photography, engineering, and lab reporting. It makes me wonder whether or not my grandfather, Dr. James A. Mattison Jr., ever knew Bascom. My grandfather, a surgeon by training, was also an early underwater photography and SCUBA pioneer, who lived in the Monterey Bay at the same time as Bascom. Maybe it would explain why Bascom’s books were in all of our houses? My grandfather may not have been quite as influential as Bascom, but he did quite a lot. He spearheaded the conservation of the sea otter in the Monterey Bay and made a film with Jacques and Philippe Cousteau, established the first hyperbaric chamber in the Monterey Fire Department for divers who came down with the bends, experimented in early aerial photography of the Monterey Bay, constantly pioneered advances in underwater medicine, and wrote a book on Captain Cook’s third and last voyage. That is to say that both men had a vast and intense interest in the ocean and in what I now feel is an antiquated notion of adventure — antiquated because based upon and steeped in the ideology of western colonialism where adventure and exploitation can be seen holding hands. Yet there is a conservationist bent as well — that ‘good’ part of conservatism that seems gone in all but name.

As to whether my grandfather and Bascom ever knew one another, I’ll have to ask around. Bascom’s work hits home in another regard: he developed the engineering that makes deep sea drilling possible. This is close to home for me because at the time of my birth my dad was a deep sea diver that worked off of oil rigs around the world. It was Bascom who came up with the engineering for both the drilling and the platforms. Originally his plan was not to aid the oil industry. Instead he and a few other scientists were working on a project that could take the spotlight off of the Russians having won the space race by launching Sputnik. Being ocean-minded, they wanted to take the public eye off of space, and bring it back down, deep down, to earth. Their project was to see whether they could get a core sample of the layer of earth beyond the Mohorivic zone. They dubbed this project the “Mohole”. After much deliberation and proposing they won their grant and Bascom got to work. The two largest engineering issues were: a.) how to get a platform steady enough over deep enough water to drill the hole — the platform would have to stay over the hole; b.) how to make a drill big enough and strong enough to bore miles into the earth’s crust. Bascom succeeded at both. For the platform he designed a multiple propeller system called a Dynamic Positioning System that was controlled by a joy stick. For the drill they used diamonds donated by the De Beers Anglo American company. I write the full name of the company because yes, just the fact that the company was called that is itself really fucking nuts.

After he has done all of this work for UC Berkeley, Scripps Institute, the US Navy, and the US Academy of Sciences, Bascom goes on to start an oceanographic engineering consulting firm. This firm would bring him to even wilder jobs like mining for offshore diamonds in South Africa, searching for buried treasure ships off of the Bahamas, and designing a tension bridge that could ostensibly span the Straights of Gilbraltar. Just how all of this links up in the course of one life is truly astounding. And if some of this sounds wildly problematic, it should, because it is. I see Bascom, again like my grandfather, as a man from an age of old conservatism, where there is a reverence for science and for humankind, but coupled with a palpable sense of domination and exploitation of natural resources. The basic idea is that the earth is here for us to know and to ‘mine’ so that we can better flourish as a species. But there is very little reflection on what actually constitutes this flourishing. At least in my grandfather’s case he saw that the sea otter was in danger and needed saving. I have troves of his research that detail the different ways that sea otters were dying in the Monterey Bay. Bascom, on the other hand, is more suspicious about those who think that the animals can’t take care of themselves, arguing at one point that we need not fear of polluting the oceans because the ocean is big enough to cycle through and filter out all of the waste, including nuclear, that we throw into it. He does say, however, that we should be worried about putting waste into less circulating, smaller bodies of water.

Bascom ends the book with these thoughts on the future:

No one can foresee the future very well; usually prognostications fall far short of what actually comes to pass, but I will suggest a few technologies that might be used to make man’s harvest of the ocean more efficient. Perhaps a new material can be devised (now jokingly known as nonobtainium) that will be light, workable, corrosion-proof, and with several times the strength of present materials. Possibly fish or other marine animals can be genetically changed to improve their size and edibility as much as turkeys have been improved. Maybe duterium can be extracted from the sea and be used as a fuel or that the heat of undersea volcanoes can become a practical source of energy. Perhaps some atoll lagoons will be made into huge fish farms and special structures something like oil platforms will be built in coastal waters as fish havens. Possibly sea barriers will be constructed on a grand scale, capable of holding back rising sea level at coast cities, or creating new and larger harbors, or making perimeters around airports in shallow waters. Perhaps it will be possible to obtain panoramic pictures of large undersea features so we can directly see what trenches, faults, and canyons look like. I fully expect that deep water oil operators and bridge foundation builders will make use of tension leg platforms and that archaeologists will find complete ancient wrecks in deep reducing environments using the techniques I have suggested. That is the system: dream about what could be useful; then work to convert dreams to reality (317-8).

Well to me a lot of Bascom’s dreams sound more like nightmares. I don’t want to eat genetically modified fish. I suppose the only platform on an atoll I’m comfortable with are the ones currently there as judging platforms for the surf contests, but now even those I am starting to question. Large perimeters around cities and airports sounds like a lot of ruined surf breaks to me. This really shows that despite the fact that Bascom understood waves better than most, he truly was not a surfer. He was more concerned with stopping waves from harming human industry than he was with riding them. We have people and thinking like his to thank for the ruination of surf spots all over the world. But we can’t be too quick to condemn. We also have people like him to thank for the jetties that keep sand on our beaches, and for the satellite imagery that actually can show us what the trenches, faults, and canyons look like from above. In fact now the buoys that we read are a combination of depth sounding instruments and satellite technology. We now do know more about the currents and flows of the ocean and the migrations of the animals and how human experimentation and meddling in the ocean environment does have negative repercussions for human and animal alike. And yeah, the oil industry did take Bascom’s ideas for deep drilling and run with them — by the way, they dismissed him at first when he consulted for them and then took the idea to the bank, but of course to devastating effects. As my dad says, “If it’s too deep for a human to fix the pipes, it’s too deep to safely drill.” I think Bascom’s overall sentiment, however, is correct, but that his premises are wrong. We must dream of a better future and create the technologies to realize it — that’s completely sound. But we must also base our notions of “better” on what constitutes a more flourishing environment not just for humans — or on the idea that flourishing for humans needs to start from the perspective that the earth is not ours to dominate but to steward.

In closing, I think both books should be on the shelf of any ocean enthusiast. It’s crucial that we know the history of oceanography and also its basic principles. Bascom’s work on wave and beach dynamics alone will enlighten your everyday experience surfing. And despite my critical stance on his philosophy of adventure, I think his adventures are also worth reading about. In a way I didn’t even scratch the surface.

New Coach Flick June 28-July 3

Another instructional coach vid for ya. A good demonstration of a ride everything philosophy. Starts off with a 5’7” Channel Islands “Fishbeard” (twin fin shortboard) in knee high mush. Then on that same day I’m riding a 9’ x 23” x 3” CSC x Barahona longboard, which was much more effective. That part of the video is super instructive for the fading take off maneuver and the high chest required for a smooth stand up in either direction. There are a few waves on the 9’ x 22.5” x 3” CSC x Barahona — and one is particularly important for a goofyfoot backside approach going right. A lot of NY surfers struggle going right, and it’s a shame! We have so many good “against the grain” right handers on offer here. Learn to take advantage of them! Next I’m riding a 4’10” Kookbox Surfboards fish shaped by Jeff McCallum out of San Diego. I love the bejeesus out of this little fast pocket rocket that is so small it works equally well as a boogie board. Only issue is that I am able to swivel it so hard my right hip hurts for days after riding it. No wonder I kept it in storage for a year! This is followed by a few vignettes of beach scenes and ends with a little POV riding my 7’ Mick Fanning Super Softie. The Fanning Soft Top is the best soft top on the market. I took it out later that day at peak crowd with no camera for one of the most fun surfs I’ve had in this early summer season. I always recommend progress goes from longer —> midlength —> shorter boards. As fun as riding small boards is for an expert, it is certainly not the telos of good surfing. The aim should always be grace and fun, which go hand in hand. It’s hard to be graceful or have fun if you’re not catching waves, making drops, and gliding down the line. Make sure you can do that on a larger board before you even think about downsizing. I have never seen a graceful, complete surfer who cannot surf a longboard or midlength well.

Speed check on the 4’10” while Gaston looks on.

Instructional Videos and MG Appreciation Fund

Not going to be a long post. Just wanted to share these two videos with the community. The first is a video of me surfing, filmed by MG Bruno, with voice overs by me. It’s some pretty simple, straightforward fundamental surfing with slo mos so that people can dissect important points about technique. The second is a video I shot, edited, and narrated of MG. She is my new assistant/mentee and as you can see I am helping her become a more powerful and radical surfer. She is already smooth and graceful. Her pop ups, pig dog, and dead cockroach maneuvers are admirable and imitable. I have received some texts from CSC folks about how stoked they are to see her surf. If you would like to support MG’s presence in the lineup I suggest sending a Venmo of your desired amount to @mmmmgggg. Call it the MG Appreciation Fund. She is not a full coach yet and there is a long way to go for that to become the case, but I thought you would like a way to show your support for her presence in our lineups when they are helpful to your own surfing. Not compulsory. Just a gesture I wanted to make towards MG and all who are inspired by her surfing.

ENTIRELY INFORMATIVE AND SILLY CLUB SURF VIDEO

Get out the popcorn and sit down for 20 minutes of pure CSC club surfing educational fun and humor. I have been experimenting with this voice over format, and both me and the mentees have been loving it. Most of the personal videos are privately linked on the Vimeo channel, but some days just flow in such a way that it makes sense to make one big edit rather than 4-6 personal ones. This way I can intersperse my own surfing and technique tips with those who are in training. MG has been joining us and she has been a great help both with the filming and with her graceful style in the water. She is helping out with filming in trade with help on advanced technique, especially on a shortboard in more powerful surf. As you can see, she’s pretty darn good on a longer board in small surf. We’re stoked to have her around.

MG style for miles down the line. Arms quiet and at the side. Stance narrow and in the center of the board for trim.

This video features students Nina Chavez, Bonnie Stamper, and Liz Golato, all of whom have been working with me for about a year. Nina and I have been working on correcting a bad pop up she had learned that we’ve dubbed “the broken lawn chair” because it involves an incorrect folding forward of her back leg. As with many tough issues in peoples’ surfing, Nina’s is exacerbated whenever she feels anxiety due to either fear or anticipation. My plan to resolve the issue has been to develop her take off and glide technique so that she feels more stable going down the line and thus is more confident about using her back foot to create space under her hips where she can then place her front foot and stand up in one stage. This is only one pop up technique, but I’m finding it’s the one that is most needed to get down for intentional surfing.

Nina likes to smile big when she pops up in one stage.

Some people with fast pop ups, like Liz in this vid, use the fast pop up as an excuse not to look at the wave or paddle hard enough into it. Liz and I have been squashing her paddling and take off confidence issues this spring, and as you can see and hear in the vid, she has realized that a strong paddle combined with looking down the line can get her into almost any wave. Liz is riding the CSC x Barahona shapes 8’6” x 23” x 3” pink stripe rendition of the “pink cloud” board, which is the best all around beginner board in the quiver, especially for the lighter surfer.

Liz cruising — could look at the wave a little more there Liz!

Bonnie Stamper is a “clean slater”. She took her very first surfing lesson with me on August 3, 2019. She and Liz had high hopes for the Costa Rica surf retreat this March, but then Covid hit so they applied their deposits to our NY surfing staycation. In the past month Bonnie has had the ultimate breakthrough in surfing: she knows what the wave looks like when she see the face as she enters the wave. She also has her very own 8’6” x 23” x 3” with her own custom color choice. Now she is moving on to learning pig dog — as you see in the first 90 seconds of the vid — and to turning the board from the tail to avoid the closeout.

Bonnie looks down the line!

Really stoked on the progress these women have made in their surfing in the past month. I also enjoy doing the voice overs and keeping the humor clean. It’s also important to include the other surfers in the lineup, just to get a feel for what one deals with on an average day in the Rockaways. I can see there may be an interpretation where I’m “making fun” of the other surfers in the water — and it wouldn’t be totally wrong — but it is in good spirit. There are lots of people out there attempting to ride 1ft mush balls on shortboards. Add to this the herd mentality of going for the same wave as everyone else and you have a perfect comedy of errors. At CSC we try to wait our turn and share waves as much as possible — there are plenty to go around. And furthermore, this video is public and contains some vital surf educational information available to all and sundry! I would say that the first two minutes where I demonstrate the pig dog take off technique are the most informative. The stuff I’m doing on the board on the beach is part the ‘surf salutation’ exercise that I teach in my virtual classes. This is a crucial technique that everyone who hopes to be a competent surfer must have in their arsenal!

Black Lives Matter

A bunch of CSC crew and I attended the Memorial Paddle Out for George Floyd in Rockaway on June 6, 2020. It was organized by @black_surfing_rockaway, which is the east coast branch of the Black Surfing Association (BSA) and also by Black Girls Surf. George Floyd’s death has sparked this incredible time of cultural awakening. The surf community came together for paddle outs all over the country and the world on June 5 and June 6. This is the kind of solidarity and future-oriented thinking that the surf community has so desperately needed. The whole event was deeply moving — 1000s of surfers united as a tribe to call for justice or rather a complete overhaul of the legal (in)justice system in America. We are all normally so hell bent on finding our own peak or our own waves that communing with our fellow surfers is difficult. Add to that less trained people dropping in on you and getting in your way on the inside and you have a nasty brew of animosity and surf rage. This event was not about curing surf rage, but I had the feeling that in a way it could be a positive side effect of more events like these. The paddle out showed that we can join in harmony and recognition of our shared humanity.

But first and foremost it was about honoring the death of George Floyd and countless other black people in America who have been unjustly killed by the police. I think it may have been the first memorial paddle out (along with the others around the world and nation) for a non surfer. Normally when a surfer dies the surfing community paddles out to sea with flowers and his or her ashes and that’s how the ceremony is held. The surfer’s ashes are distributed back into the sea, a few of the community leaders say some words, and then the surfers celebrate by splashing the water and hooting. I myself would love for my life to be celebrated in this fashion after I am gone. When we return to the sea in this way we are truly going back to where we emerged from in the first place. The sea water in the veins of surfer and non surfer alike connects us all.

It will be interesting to see how this movement and uprising plays out in the world at large. Already cities and counties are discussing and making moves to abolish or radically transform their police forces. Many of the things that police respond to do not require guns or badges — and in many places in the world the everyday police do not carry fire arms. The police in America are trained for combat and they look that way. Their whole presence is defensive and menacing. There were two police boats surveilling the paddle out — you’ll see them in the video — and they felt unnecessary. It was later revealed on Instagram that the boats were there at the behest of Black Surfing Rockaway should there be a medical emergency in the water. But this is precisely the point: even though the intention was good, the execution sent the wrong message simply due to the symbolism and ‘vibe’ of the police boats. It’s also a cynical view of humanity and surfers that we would not be able to rescue a brother or sister who had a stroke in the water — I know I am capable of putting someone on my board and paddling them to shore. In ideal world there would be medics — trained EMTs — waiting peacefully on the beach should such an emergency occur at an event like this.

Pic from the water of the circle of surfers in support of BLM — police boat is off in the distance.

It would also have been a different thing altogether if the police had big ‘Black Lives Matter’ banners on the sides of their boats in solidarity. This would have sent a completely different message, and we would not have felt like they were there to quell some kind of uprising in the water.

Surfers have an unspoken code not to get the police involved in any of our water disputes. There have been a few cases where they were in involved — they were called in to respond to the crazy localism at Lunada Bay — and when I lived in SF a body boarder had a restraining order from surfing Fort Point (under the Golden Gate Bridge) for putting someone in a choke hold in the lineup — but for the most part we rely on ourselves to sort out our issues in the water. I do not think we do the best job most of the time — there is a lot of defensive and entitled behavior — and part of my program here at CSC is to endeavor to do better. One thing I have noticed is that one is less likely to commit a surfing ‘crime’ against another surfer if he or she knows their name. This is not always the case — there are bad actors that burn all and sundry — but for the most part it is easier to work out the dispute if you are able to acknowledge the person’s humanity by ‘saying their name’.

I also wanted to write this post to formally acknowledge that CSC supports the BLM movement and everything it stands for. This movement has caused me to honestly and holistically confront my own complicity — as I did in the post below as well — and has helped me see that it is ok to admit that you have played a part in a thoroughly sick system. My goal moving forward is to continue to having these difficult thoughts and conversations and to devise ways that I can contribute to a better (surfing) culture. In the video you may or may not notice that I do not chant along too often — it remains hard for me to shout with a crowd in public — and this is for any cause, even ones I truly believe in, like this one. I don’t have the requisite passion because empathy is a logical, not an emotional, process for me. Given the logic of trying to put yourself in the shoes of others — and this is what so many white people in America need to be doing right now — one can find the reason why one should also raise one’s voice in unison against the cultural institutions that radically underserve black Americans. There is another paddle out on June 20th and I’ll endeavor to join in the chanting then.

Towards A Critical Surfing Future: A Critical Surf Studies Bibliography Primer

Welp writing to you from another critical moment in human history. We’re still in a pandemic, but now we also have a new and much needed cultural revolution on our doorsteps, sparked by the public murder of George Floyd by the hands (and knees) of Minneapolis police officers. I stand with the protestors and the Black Lives Matter movement, but I also stand for Mother Earth, women of every shade, Native Americans and other indigenous and colonized peoples, immigrants, and all the poor and oppressed, in whatever forms their oppression takes — in this I count the spiritually oppressed who may have lots of material means but suffer radically from hardness of heart and clouded vision.

It may seem like a funny segue to talk about some books that I have recently acquired in my surf studies library, but there are a few crucial links. You would think that somebody that surfs so much and cares so much about surfing and has this business based upon surfing education would already have had all these books in his library and would have read through all of them already. I have read a few of them by now, like the above, Waves of Resistance by Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, but a great deal of this stack I have yet to get through completely. Why has it taken me so long to start collecting a surfing library? It’s interesting story, and one that bears on our current moment.

I have realized that I have been defending against surfing and liking surfing for a long time based upon the bad things in the culture I witnessed and experienced growing up in surf culture and have wanted to distance myself from. I watched active and violent racism, misogyny, and xenophobia play out at my local beach. I have seen a surfer whose nickname was ‘White Pride Rich’ kick out his surfboard at black surfer Gary Crocraw. I have heard surfers call one another homophobic slurs and myself have been called a ‘fag’ in a San Francisco lineup, of all places. I have seen surfers throw sticks at Mexican families at the beach where I grew up. I have heard surfers use the ‘n-word’, and words like ‘wetback’ and ‘spic’ as a part of common parlance. I have watched a woman get called ‘cunt’ to her face in the water. I have also not always been an innocent bystander in this culture. Like all young people, I was impressionable and looked up to the guys who were mentoring my fledgling surfing practice. I yelled at people in the water and told them to “Go back to Santa Cruz.”

I also consumed everything I could get my hands on about surf culture. I wanted to signal to everyone that I was a surfer. I wore surf clothing and watched zillions of surf videos a week. I read as many books about surfing that I possibly could. I read every surfing magazine that hit news stands. I was obsessed. But as I started to mature and travel and experience the other side of localism, I began to have misgivings about what I viewed to be the bad parts of the culture. And so in my mid 20s, instead of performing a holistic critique of surfing culture and my role in it, I simply and hastily decided to eschew consuming as many surfing cultural products — books, magazines, videos, clothing, accessories — anything except the hard goods — surfboards, wax, wetsuits, leashes, board bags — that I possibly could. I didn’t just eschew it, but I actively got rid of everything that I already owned that signaled, “I surf.” I made sure I wore logo-less clothing and that there was nary a surfing magazine laying around my apartment. Instead I immersed myself in my studies of religion, philosophy, critical theory, and literature. I still surfed like a lunatic, but in a kind of defiant anti-surfing culture stance.

I say this original critique wasn’t holistic because instead of holding myself accountable for my own complicity in this culture, I simply repressed it and defended against it. If surfing culture had an ethics problem, I was not part of it, or I was going to distance myself from it. I was above it — I could surf and love surfing but do it without engaging in the culture. You can already see the flawed logic here. This is simply bad, unprocessed elitism. It is one of my greatest struggles as a person, one of my my nearest and dearest personality flaws. Even still, even as soon as last week, I got mad at how when I surf an extra amount in a given set of time, I end up feeling stupid or brain dead. I voiced as much in my last newsletter, but ultimately came around to the conclusion that I find myself coming to more often: surfing involves a lot of practical wisdom. If I surf 40 hours a week I have no one to blame but myself for brain cells that I’ve shed. I am also not spending those hours solely focused on my own practice, but am sharing my practical and theoretical know-how of surfing with others. My life’s work has become about creating and fostering an intentional and ethical surfing community.

These kinds of thoughts are more indicative of a holistic critique — a critique that takes into account my relationship to others, to the ways that I have been shaped for the good and the bad by various aspects of surfing culture, and to the fact that I am a better surfer, philosopher, and leader when I examine my traumas, defenses, repressions, and projections as they play out in my words, actions, and well, habits. Forming better habits is, after all, what ethics is all about. Furthermore, as a philosopher, as someone who loves wisdom, and therefore loves truth, I was disavowing a very simple truth about myself: surfing is foundational and central to my identity as a person. This doesn’t mean that I have to wear head-to-toe surf brands, but it also doesn’t mean that I need to be ashamed for wearing them either. At least not ashamed for the fact that they signal that I surf or that I endorse a brand formed in surfing culture. I may have other ethical issues with how that clothing is produced, and I do have a very strong stance about fashion ethics and hold all clothing companies accountable for their exploitative labor practices. It is sad that surfing brands have been on the wrong side of history in this regard more often than not. This thought is also indicative of a holistic critique of surfing culture. Critique is not a dirty word — it’s a hopeful word. Critique is the process of examination that helps us locate practices in our selves and in our institutions that are more and less just, more and less true. It helps us highlight what is worth holding onto and nourishing — like the joy we get when we share waves with our fellow surfing brothers and sisters — and what we need to work to discard or reshape.

Part of the process of my own critique of surfing has been first to embark on this project of writing my philosophy dissertation on surfing (rather than on fashion). In so doing I have had to rebuild my surfing library. How can I have a truly critical attitude and approach to myself and to the culture I’m most active in if I turn my eyes away from the stories others have told about it? The project is coming along well and I hope to be done soon.

Something else that has become evident due to Covid-induced shifts in doing business, is that I can mobilize my love and knowledge of surfing with others not just in the water physically coaching, but also through seminars on oceanography, etiquette, surfing history, and well, what I am starting to realize are ‘critical surf studies’, which is already an academic sub field in Australian universities. I am in the process of brainstorming what a full critical surfing education might look like, including getting better at the physical practice, and how, beyond writing books and blogs, I can make this vision come to fruition. I would love to found or participate in founding an institute where critical surfing theory and practice function hand in hand. I mean CSC is the beginning of this vision, of course. And we’re starting down this theoretical road now with the invention of our book club, which meets for the first time this coming Monday, June 8 to discuss the first two chapters of Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean (2014) by Jonathan White.

Re-reading Tides has already shown me that caring critically about surfing doesn’t mean just caring about surfing culture — it means caring about the ocean and the planet more generally. A part of any critical surfing bibliography, therefore, should also include literature on climate change and ecology. Asking important questions about the relationships between people and people, people and the ocean, the ocean and the universe, and how all of this is connected, is truly inexhaustible, and that’s ok! Of course I’m also interested in these connections from a philosophical and larger scientific perspective, which is why in this future critical surf institute there will be classes on Spinoza, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as classes on subjects like quantum gravity and evolutionary biology. Education is the salvation of humanity. We never flourish more than when we examine self and world with others.

In that spirit, here are some books in my current critical surf studies rotation. I have been boycotting Amazon lately and a lot of these I recently got through Alibris.