In this day and age of mega surf crowds in the water at just about every break known to man or beast on the planet, the issues of etiquette, common courtesy and safety are debated over constantly.
It is very prevalent here in Orange County as there are probably no un-ridden or uncrowded surfing beaches anywhere to be found anymore.
I was thinking about this very thing a couple of weeks ago when I took a stroll out onto the Huntington Beach Pier. When I was younger, there were already crowds at the pier, that was in the 1950s and ’60s. But the crowd stuck right next to the pier, on both sides. If you stood on the pier and looked north or south, there was nobody surfing once you got further away than about 50 yards from the pier.
Not now. Looking both directions for as far as you can see, there are zillions of surfers. It looks like pepper on French fries. Packed to the max.
And this is every day. Good surf, bad surf, rain or shine.
Bringing me to the point of today’s story. With all these people in the water, there is more, and more, need for etiquette, common courtesy and safety procedures.
One thing that keeps coming up, is the issue of people “ditching” their boards. If they are caught inside of an oncoming wave, rather than trying to get through it, they just jump off and let their board go. This is crazy dangerous in a crowd. Even though you might be wearing a surf leash, there could be somebody just inside of you and your board can fly out of the wave and hit them.
This has happened twice recently to people I know. One is the great surf legend Linda Benson. She got hit by a ditched board and spent a couple days in the hospital and was put out of surfing commission for months. The other was a neighbor of mine, who had his arm broken.
Many beginners are just unaware, or maybe they just don’t care. Not long ago, I saw this scenario happen and I paddled over to the person who had let their board go, and nicely told her to…
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