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| Cowells, November 2025 PHOTO:KCS |
Some 30 years ago I rode one of the most memorable waves of my life. The wave was a curling storm of beauty, seemed to break forever and I surfed it through several sections with good balance and control. My ride began at Second Peak at Pleasure Point on the Eastside, one of a series of Santa Cruz's notorious surf breaks.
I had lined up with two friends, Ron Harsh and Derrick Clark. As the wave approached, Ron turned his board as if he were going for it. As compadres we had ridden waves together so I turned and caught the wave believing Ron was behind me. I heard what I thought was a whoop behind me, like woowee!
Through every section I heard Ron whooping it up. Only it was not Ron. The rider behind me was a Point local who was telling me to get out of his way. I found that out at the end of the ride. "Hey, don't let that happen again," he said in an angry tone.
I felt deflated, like a kook. Which I was. You don't jump in front of someone already on the wave. I had been stoked the entire ride. Now this.
When I paddled back, Derrick said, "If you get into a fight, we're not going to back you up."
"I thought you were riding behind me, Ron."
"Oh no. I got out of the way. That was Kevin Misk, one of the best longboarders out here."
In retrospect, the ride was worth the tongue lashing.
I had returned to surfing at age 50, after more than 30 years of mostly dry dock. I was riding my new custom surfboard shaped by my friend Johnny Rice, a Santa Cruz legend. Johnny was probably in his mid-60s.
I took the pleasure of riding waves with Johnny and his wife Rosemarie (see photo below). We were among a lineup of locals who surfed the long-peeling and mostly gentle waves at Cowells, the local Westside break where "everyone starts and ends," according to local lore.
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| Rosemarie Reimers Rice surfs a wave at Hermosa Beach 1962. Rosemarie is among those honored in the Three Princes exhibit at the Santa Cruz MAH through January 5. |
Cowells is a family wave where you meet your neighbors in the water. Here's a few I remember: Longboard Tim who never wore a wetsuit, Talking Todd who never stopped talking, Door-Shop Dave, Rail-Ding Bob, Big Steiny and Little Steiny, Matt Micuda, Dave Gardner, Jeff Larkey, Nesh Dhillon, sisters Joni and Bonnie McFarland, David "the Buddha" Anderson, Kim Stoner, Ed James, noserider Raney Oullette, Jason "Rat Boy" Collins, Joe Collins, Bob Collins, Dave Collins, Carpenter-Dave (Rogers), Juan Hernandez and his buddy Ron, Fritz Bensusan and Laura, Mindy and Jock Martin, Michel Junod, Fitness Todd (Smith), Leigh Miller, Jen Coco, Laura Williams, Susan Coffey, Kai Cole, Michael the “Flyin’ Hawaiian,” Chris Murren, identical twins Sarah and Rachael Raskin, Sarah Gerhardt (first woman to ride Mavericks) and hubby Mike, Doc Scott, Jeff and Michelle Scott, Steve Kurtz, enforcer Vince Collier and Pat Farley, who produced a documentary film, Cowells and the New Millennium (2004), that was first screened at the nearby historic Cocoanut Grove and everybody came. A fine effort by a rookie filmmaker, Farley's documentary won awards at several film festivals.
I'm sure I missed a few names. But you get the picture. At times it was a love fest. All the local kids surfed here at one time, before graduating to the bigger waves at Steamer Lane and in some cases the monster waves up the coast at Mavericks.
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| Pat Farley prepares for a paddle on a flat day in September 2025. PHOTO:KCS |
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| Santa Cruz surfer girls (left to right) Taryn, Bryna, Becca and Paige party before launching on their Costa Rica and points south adventure, year 2000. |
Family vacations became surfing holidays in Hawaii and Mexico. We traveled with our friends Nancy and Steve Howells. Steve was a ripper. He rode short and longboards, on all kinds of waves. He had been employed in the nascent surf industry of the 60s. Steve had tested new boards for shapers out of Santa Barbara.
Our youngest daughter, Isabel Bryna, joined us on these trips. She established bonafide cred as the surfer in our family, having grown up with the waves, competing in various contests and school-sponsored events, a charger who nearly lost her leg when the fin of her board sliced into her thigh.
Following graduation from Santa Cruz High School, she and a pod of surfer girls -- Bonnie Salter, Becca Davis, Sara Stewart, Paige Nutt and Taryn Craig -- split for Costa Rica and points beyond, including the beaches of Australia. They spread out and beyond, fearlessly chasing waves and life experiences in the Southern Hemisphere. We parents hugged them goodbye and held our breath in the terminal at San Francisco International Airport.
My claim that I have surfed the Atlantic Ocean in Uruguay is due to our adventuresome daughter. Barbara and I made two trips to the far coast of Atlantica in Uruguay, where our granddaughter Viva was born. Today, Bryna and Taryn reside on the island of Kauai where, as surfer moms, they continue to ride waves of the Pacific with their children.
Since that wild ride where I got yelled at at Pleasure Point on my new Johnny Rice board, I have surfed through six surfboards, four of them shaped by Bob Pearson, one by Ward Coffee, both Westside shapers. That’s a paltry number for my surf buddies who have accumulated quivers of boards for all conditions. For many who ride waves, the surfboard is not merely an aquadymanic vessel for riding, but a finely shaped objet d'art that merits a place on the wall.
The iconic longboard is built to glide through water like a dolphin and turn gracefully as directed by the rider through footwork and weight balance. The rider becomes one with the wave resulting in being stoked, having been fed the fire that fulfills your being. Or so the soul surfer believes.
My surf buddies Tony Lorero, Rob Butterfield, Don Iglesias and I -- continue through our seventh decade to live for another wave. When the ocean turns calm and there are none, we paddle on our boards, tell stories and complain just enough so that we never lose our stoke and good humor. Fellow paddlers are welcome.
According to Don, "Surfing makes you a better person."
Tony finds that debatable.
Rob says hello to everyone.
COVID was a boon to the surf industry that has morphed into clothing and related gear that the old timers would never believe, like the wetsuit wrench. Hell, Rod Lundquist, one of the early Santa Cruz surfers of the 50s says they entered the cold water in second-hand wool sweaters from Goodwill. There were no wetsuits! Or surf contests. The crowds drove Rod to hang-gliding.
With so many people in the water today riding new iterations of the noble surfboard -- including kite boards and motorized hydrofoils -- and with technology making secret spots widely known, localism seems fairly quaint.
Old surfing maxim: We were all kooks at one time.
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| Left to right: Don Iglasias, Rob Butterfield and Tony Loreo ham it up at the Three Princes surf exhibit currently showing at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History through January 5. The exhibit chronicles the history of surfing in North America that began in Santa Cruz with three Hawaiian princes (not these guys). The show features replicas of early surfboards made by the Hawaiians, reproduced here by local shaper Bob Pearson of Arrow Surfboards. Also on display: a retrospective of early surf shops and key local surfers as well as the "guns" (big wave surfboards) that were ridden on the 30-foot wave faces at world-famous Mavericks. A tribute to Johnny Rice is shown in the background. |
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| Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all from the Surfer Statue on West Cliff Drive in the Westside of town. PHOTO:KCS 2023 |
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