So you want uncrowded surf? So does everyone else. Photo: Screenshot
Back before Lower Trestles, that premier California break located on the border of Orange and San Diego Counties, featured a Walmart-esque e-bike parking lot and a lineup clogged with battery-powered tykes who, not so many years ago, would’ve been dropped off by their moms at T-Street, scores of 20-somethings, most of whom wouldn’t know what to do with a set wave if the earth shifted on its gravitational axis and they actually caught one, at least a couple dozen frustrated, middle-aged Big Board Brand devotees sitting sunken up to their clavicles on too-small surfboards with catchy model names, and, of course, a coterie of some of the best surfers in the world…Lowers was still a frickin’ zoo.
As in, saturated. And not crowded in the conventional, ultra-congested surf spot way — think breaks like Rincon, Swamis, or Snapper Rocks, where, in theory at least, the pack spreads out laterally according to one’s place on the food chain. Lowers, on the other hand, is an apex peak, meaning that even if you are lucky enough to catch a wave at the actual take-off spot, you must first negotiate a veritable fiberglass curtain of surfers sitting directly inside of you. This is why, with the exception of surfing in a contest heat, not even the pros get to do their initial bottom turn unimpeded by a scrambling neoprene chevron.
I put up with years of this pinball-surfing during my time working at the surf mags in San Clemente, when I lived right up the road from Trestles. Until one particularly crowded afternoon when, having worked my way up to fifth-place on the set-wave hierarchy (just behind Ben, Charley, Grumpy Ron and, of course, Herbie) I paddled into a good, overhead peak and immediately plowed into the inside logjam, left with no recourse but to grab the wetsuit collar of a surfer trying to take off underneath me and yank him out of my path so as not to spear him in the back. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy what was left of the ride, and pedaling back home on my bike I felt like the rat I’d become, fighting with the rest of the pack over a piece of cheese. But I loved surfing Lowers. What to do? The solution hit me before I reached Carl’s Jr. up on El Camino Real. Why not surf Lowers at night?
I’ve actually accrued quite a bit of time surfing at night. Enough to assert that surfing under the lights in a wave pool, however novel, isn’t quite the same thing. I can keenly remember the first time I committed to paddling out into the dark, when, on a family trip to Hawaii way back in 1972, my younger brother Matt and I enjoyed a 10:00 p.m. session at Queens in Waikiki, the empty lineup illuminated quite effectively by the lights of Kalakaua Avenue alone. Experiencing, for the first time, the enhanced sense of speed that comes with the cessation of peripheral vision; it’s just you and the wave, every sensation heightened in the bubble of co-existence.
In the decades that followed that initial thrill there’ve been many memorable moonlight go-outs.
A session at Rincon, low tide, four-to-six feet, empty, and, if that wasn’t enough, a mind-boggling bioluminescence event that made carving through the Cove like something out of Star Wars; under warm, starlit Caribbean skies at Sandy Lane, in Barbados. I once had Scorpion Bay’s Third Point all to myself, riding alone at midnight as a fat full moon peeked up from beyond Mesa El Coyote to the southeast, lighting up the perfect walls ahead of me; a peak, late-night session near Playa Vernao in Panama, again with the bioluminescent bloom so thick the whitewater glowed eerily green throughout the entire ride.
Yeah, surfing at night, while an acquired taste, is pretty special. Mostly because it makes surfing seem pretty special. Which, by association, makes you feel pretty special. Which was exactly the feeling I needed following my latest session at Lowers. So, with a full moon slated for later that week, I resolved to take advantage of its benevolent beams and enjoy a quiet session at one of the sport’s most hectic lineups.
It was right around 11:30 p.m. that I loaded my bike and board into the back of my pickup and headed south down El Camino Real, anticipation running high. I’d heard about a couple local guys who had reportedly taken to surfing Trestles at night, wearing waterproof lights attached to waist belts. In my experience, however, having the wave lit up ahead of you in this manner doesn’t work like when a beam of light is coming toward you, following the entire wall and curve of the wave; headlights illuminate only what’s a few feet ahead of your board’s nose. In any case, I’d have no problem sharing Lowers with a couple of Captain Nemos; at night, a bit of company is fine.
What puzzled me, though, was the number of cars parked along the road near the top of the Trestles trail. Nothing like on a normal day, but still, certainly more than I expected. Couldn’t figure it, not like in the old days when surfers carried their boards on roof racks. Overflow parking from nearby Camp Pendleton, maybe? Nevertheless, I pulled in under a streetlight, zipped into my springsuit, strapped my board to my bike rack and headed down.
The cool night air blowing my hair back, potent scent of California sage and goldenbush wafting out of the San Mateo Creek watershed, rolling along on a moonbeam down the old highway, surfboard by my side; this was the kind of experience I craved; the sort of singular experience that as a surfer I cherished. Eventually peddling back up the dirt lifeguard access road past Middles, I smugly applauded my adventurous spirit. And then I saw them.
Three girls, late teens at first guess, sitting abreast of each other near the crest of the berm, beach towels wrapped about their shoulders as they peered out toward the distant breaking waves. Their attitude was instantly familiar: I’d grown up walking past girls stationed on the sand, pretending that they enjoyed watching their boyfriends have fun in the surf. Just never in the moonlight. But it couldn’t be that. Could it?
Keep in mind, hardly anyone rode bikes to Trestles then, most everyone walked from up the beach to the north. No way to tell what was going on except to paddle out. Which I did. And the first thing I saw when my eyes adjusted was two guys hurtling toward me out of the darkness on a left, their white wakes angrily streaming behind as they jousted for position, almost running me down. What the hell?
Yeah, you’re not that smart. Photo: Jeremy Bishop//Unsplash
What it was, was a really uncrowded day at Lowers, but at midnight. Only 15 guys scrunched up next to each other on the peak. Dead silent, as if trying to ignore each other’s presence. Until a set loomed up out of the night, that is, when the entire pack started jockeying for position, with some kicking and thrashing going on, and someone from within the scrum actually yelling, “Got it!” Two surfers dropped in on the right, two on the left — from my place out on the shoulder I couldn’t tell which guy prevailed. Then again, it was dark out. Which made the whole sorry spectacle that much worse. I turned and paddled to shore, outraged, at first, then, having given the situation some thought, seriously chagrinned by my obvious hubris. As if I was the only surfer in the world who thought a moonlight session at Lowers might be a good idea.
I walked past the beach bunnies on the way to my bike, pausing to comment that they were, without a doubt, the most committed girlfriends I’d ever encountered. They smiled at that, but you could tell each wished it were their boyfriend coming in from the surf. Surf that they couldn’t see.
The ride back to my truck seemed to take three times as long — and not just because it was uphill most of the way. Despondency drags on the legs as much as the soul. But I eventually made it to where I’d parked under the street light, loading my bike and board, and in the halogen cone thinking that lonely midnight defeats are always the worst kind. Then suddenly I heard…music? An eerie tinkling of chimes, followed by a deep, rippling electric trill, fading into a heavy guitar riff. For the second time that night, I was, like, “What the hell?”
Then it hit me. On the way crosstown, I’d popped in a cassette (told you this was “back then”) for a bit of late-night psyche up, and the song “Day of the Eagle” by English guitar maestro Robin Trower still holds up as one of the best psyche-up songs ever. When returning to my truck, I’d turned the engine on to get the feet heat going, unbeknownst that the tape was still running, just between the first and second song on Trower’s classic album “Bridge of Sighs.” That second cut giving the album its name, and still perhaps the best rock dirge ever. Playing now, with its ominous, dreary tone matching perfectly my current scenario, and my current mood. Then came the lyrics.
“The sun don’t shine
The moon don’t move the tides
To wash me clean
Why so unforgiving and why so cold
Been a long time crossing the bridge of sighs.”
Got that goddamn right, I thought, more bitterly than I wished. Then hopped in my truck and drove away, the dispassionate moon lighting the way home, all the way to my bed.
And yeah, sure, I was right back out there the next day after work. With the knowledge that sitting there surrounded by fellow rats, I wasn’t all that special after all.
The second song on this particular album, though, exudes a much different vibe
