Basic HTML Version
44
summer
|
fal l
particularly at Rincon, where it’s so crowded now that it has become all-
out warfare. At the breaks around Montecito, surfers are more respectful;
they take it in turn.
“Rincon is
always
bigger. If beaches here at Miramar, or Coral
Casino, or Hammonds are four feet, Rincon will be fifty percent
bigger; it’ll be six feet there, so often surfers will go down and surf
the better quality waves at Rincon. But sometimes the experience
isn’t always about getting the best wave. Hammonds, for example,
is a wonderful spiritual zone; we have that meadow that has been
protected. You feel like you’re part of a larger community; the
Chumash had a settlement there and you just get this feeling when
you’re out on the water. Dolphins often come and swim with you and
I think surfers are very grateful for that experience. It’s not all about
getting as many waves as you can.
S
haun Tomson is a former number-one surfer in the world, (1977), and hails from South Africa, but now lives in
Montecito with his wife, Carla, and their six-month-old son, Luke. Shaun’s documentary film “Bustin’ Down The
Door” chronicles his and five fellow surfers’ efforts – Australians Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, Peter Townend,
Mark Richards, and Ian Cairns, and South African cousin Michael Tomson – to introduce their style of surfing to the
rest of the world. They broke those doors down in 1975 during a worldwide competition held on Hawaii’s North Shore
and ultimately changed the sport and industry, helping make surfing what it is today. There is also a book by the same
name and Shaun and his co-producers are working on a feature-film adaptation of the story. “Surf, sex, sun, drama... Who
wouldn’t want to make this movie?” he laughs as we settle onto some comfortable boulders at the bottom of the Miramar steps
for a short interview.
Long Dry Summers
“Generally, those swells break in our area from late October all the
way to April, so it’s kind of a long, dry summer (for surf breaks as well as
the weather) in Santa Barbara.” Shaun says he has lived here since 1995
but first surfed Montecito’s beaches in the 1970s.
“These are the same swells that come into Hollister Ranch (to the
north) and Rincon (to the south),” he continues, “but by the time they
get into Santa Barbara, they are very manicured. The swells are very
straight, very even, making for a particularly fun ride. The waves we get
in Santa Barbara are not ‘life-threatening,’ or particularly challenging,”
he continues, “but they are
really
enjoyable. You’ve got about half-a-
dozen breaks, and I think the surfers that come here have a different
attitude than, say, the surfers at many other breaks in California,
Above It All
observat ions
“What’s interesting about this little stretch of beach in Montecito, from Coral Casino all the way through to
Fernald Point,” Shaun observes, “is that even though it faces south, we don’t get any south swells; all the south swells
are blocked off by the Channel Islands. We don’t get north swells either because they can’t wrap around to the south,
so we actually get west swells, which really are the best for this area, and they sort of tend to manage to get through
the gap in the Channel Islands.