SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY ELEVEN - July 27, 2019

 

Anna

Suffocating on the hard facts of my life, done with work for the week, I grabbed the co-pilot and lit out for Topanga State Beach at 5 p.m. Safari Summer has taught me that certain surf trips are not as hair-raising and impossible as I’d assumed. It took less than an hour and decompression kicked-in with the first whiff of salty air drifting up Sunset Boulevard.

Topanga Beach lies at the mouth of Topanga Creek,  where it empties after a journey through the natural jewel known as… Topanga Canyon. Back when there was plenty of California to go around, it was colonized by hippies. In the ‘80s, some developers decided to turn Topanga into gold. The hippies, by then, were prosperous merchants with a residual talent for political organization that knocked the developers clear back to downtown Los Angeles (never to return). An alternative culture took root between the shady canyon’s walls. There is a new-age, witchy-woman-in-seven-veils feel to that insulated little world. For me, the perfect expression of Topanga Hippy is Stevie Nicks. And that culture flows with the creek down to the beach.

Topanga's a world famous spot (surfing world). The creek deposits cobblestones onto a reef, at a point; two features which, somehow, give the waves an ideal form. My board was made by a Topanga-based “shaper” named Robbie Dick,  specifically for the wave there, which I find fascinating. San Diego shaper and surf legend Mike Hynson – co-star of “Endless Summer” – convinced a SeaWorld worker to let him trace the dorsal fin of a trained dolphin named Cindy so that his boards' fins were a meticulous representation of the real deal. I’m not that into it, but the whole business about my board being built for Topanga is true. Even with a zillion guys out there, I took my spot in the lineup and grabbed the three best rides of Surfin' Safari Summer, before getting out after just 45 minutes.

The currents were strong and the sea floor all jagged rocks. I am 59 years old. They call that "quitting while you're ahead."

We didn’t go for street tacos, because our entry point from Malibu is to the north where the good neighborhoods brood and street tacos are anathema. Imagine that. We settled for a “Burger Lounge” in Beverly Hills, about which there is nothing to say, and that’s the point.