SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER ONE - DAY SIX - July 7, 2019

 

 

 

Struck out on my own very early to beat the crowd and arrived at Kook's Corner to find a crowd. Sundays are busy. Kook's Corner is at the place where Sunset Boulevard finishes its majestic 22-mile course from Union Station downtown to the edge of the continent. A "Kook" is a person beginning and/or not very good. Sometime in the annals of Los Angeles surfing someone decided that this prime stretch of wave would be a training ground; that you could go there and learn without being shamed and humiliated. It's a happy spot where it is okay to suck. Not coincidentally, I have surfed it many times. There are too many people, as the photos show. You have to position yourself so as not to be in the way of others, but still catch a wave when five people are paddle-sprinting on either side of you with the same idea. It's a reef, so the ride ends in the rocks -- what surfers call the boneyard -- where you can break your board or, you know, your face. It was cold so I put on the wetsuit. It's a new design with a zipper in the front that is hard to get in and out of and I started by putting it on backward. I got through that, with some struggle, and paddled out to catch some nice rides. Kook's Corner is not the most scenic spot on the coast, but I always get a charge while sitting on my board, looking up, and seeing Sunset empty out onto famed California 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

 


 

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