SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY FIFTEEN August 11, 2019


After last weekend's southbound sojourn to San Diego, we turned in the opposite direction for “Surfer’s Point,” in the City of Ventura. We’d pulled off the road about 10 years ago to see what it was about. Another point on a rock reef that never stops generating action. A natural wave-making machine. We packed a picnic. What should have been an hour drive was one-third longer. We didn’t mind. We ate the picnic in the car as we crawled up the coast looking at the strawberry fields laid out like lined carpets leading into town. I know Ventura and Santa Barbara are considered Southern California, but they are more gateways to the Central Coast. The signs point to San Francisco. The deserts of the southwest recede. Things get greener and more moist. The megalopolis that is Los Angeles rolls out to nothing. There is a separation between towns, nestled in broad coves, with houses climbing the hills set back behind California 1. Fante fades and Steinbeck surfaces. We weren’t sure exactly where Surfer’s Point was and pulled into a state park ranger kiosk to ask. We were told the road to Surfer’s Point was closed because the Ventura County Fair was underway. I explained that we were from Surfin’ Safari Summer Facebook (for clout) and asked if it would be possible to suspend the Fair for a day and open the road so that we might chronicle the famed wave. The rangers said they had no power to do such a thing. Bureaucrats. I thought we might park in Ventura proper

and walk out to the point. But it turned out to be the typical summer town throwing a party: cones blocking roads; police-manned diversions at every turn… just not happening, so we settled in at San Buenaventura State Park, entering on San Jose Street. I brought both my boards, but needed neither. No surf at all. Optimistic by nature, I can convince myself almost any wave might be ridden, but after half an hour, I was licked. The water is colder that far north and, as such, home to more sharks, which keeps you thinking. The ocean is a great giant mood ring and, sometimes, if you hang around a while, things change, the wind dies down, waves kick up, and fun is in the offing. But the offshore wind did not die down, kept blowing the tops off the waves. The long, white lines at Surfer's Point a mile away tantalized. Anna was swathed like Admiral Peary at the North Pole and there just was no reason to remain.

That’s two miserable surf sessions in a row. Cruising home we set a tentative plan for a weekday trip to Topanga Beach because there's a growing itch for a reliable wave.





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