Surfers Territorial About Their Waters

SAN CLEMENTE —  When the large summer swells from the South Pacific roll up the California coast, they strike a rock-cobbled reef at a river mouth called Lower Trestles and surge, creating a wave some call the best in California.

Waves at other spots are hollower, some are faster with what surfers call more “juice,” but none offer the overall quality found here.

“It’s an easy, delightful, long, high-performance wave that is consistently good, sometimes great,” said Steve Pezman, a surfing magazine publisher who lives here so he can surf at “Lowers” and other quality surfing spots along the coast of San Onofre State Park. “It’s as close as you can find anymore to a remote wilderness surfing experience in Southern California.”

But Lowers has become the subject of a long-simmering controversy that also has surfaced at prominent surfing spots in Malibu and Hawaii. In each area, a group of local surfers has decided to challenge the increasingly common policy of closing public beaches so they can be leased to private companies for commercial surfing contests.

The issue came to a head at Lowers on May 18, in the midst of a run of powerful surf pumped north from New Zealand, the first supreme swell of the year. That morning, three surfers defied a ban and paddled into the middle of a closed contest.

They were given tickets when they refused to leave and now they are in court, determined to have a jury decide what is right. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“None of us are against contests; we just don’t think they should have them at Lower Trestles,” said Cortland “Corky” Crandal, 39, a Costa Mesa resident and father of two who has been surfing for 30 years. “It’s the only place left around here like it, a natural area away from development where you get the total experience of surfing.”

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Crandal and his co-defendants, Scott Lisk and Steve Murga, are members of an intense group of surfers collectively known as the Lowers “dawn patrol” because they regularly surf at sunrise to escape the crowds.

But the three say they are fed up with arriving at their favorite surfing spot only to find it closed to all but professionals.

“Something had to be done, so we decided to do it,” said Steve Murga, 46, a Toyota salesman from Huntington Beach and the father of three. “It’s gone from the original, say two contests a year, to now everybody wants to have contests there.”

The three hired an attorney, Lincoln Gardner of San Clemente, another surfer and member of the newly formed Trestles Surfing Assn. The group organized to grapple with the proliferation of contests as well as other environmental issues that threaten their favorite surfing area.

Gardner said Lowers has been leased out for 21 days this year, including a weeklong surfing contest set to begin Monday.

“The issue comes down to whether or not surfers or anyone can be excluded from surfing there for the benefit of someone who has paid for the right to be there,” Gardner said.

A county state parks official said the trio’s protest has not gone unnoticed, and the contest policy at Lowers is being reviewed by a task force. A survey also is being conducted by the state with the help of San Clemente-based Surfing Magazine to get a better idea of what the public’s attitude is about the contest policy at Lowers, said Jack Roggenbuck, the superintendent in charge of the state parks and beaches in Orange County.

But Roggenbuck warned that if contests are eliminated, the state might have to make up for the lost revenue by increasing entrance fees to San Onofre or instituting parking fees at the Trestles lot off Cristianitos Road.

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Eventually, surfers and contest promoters will have to compromise, and not everyone will walk away happy, Roggenbuck said.

“This is a premier surfing break, and there are as many people who want to have contests as there are who don’t,” Roggenbuck said. “Part of our mission is to create recreational opportunities for every citizen. If that means having contests, so be it.”

Roggenbuck acknowledged that the May 18 contest happened “by the luck of the draw” to occur on what turned out to be arguably the best surf day of the year.

“I sympathize with that . . . but those are some of the things we have to live with in an increasingly urban environment,” Roggenbuck said. “We are trying to find the best middle ground we can.”

Many of the regulars don’t believe there should be a compromise.

“The state is acting like a baron in this, pimping the whole area for a small amount of money,” said surfer Bob Bailey, 45, of Laguna Beach. “From Point Conception all the way down here, it’s one of the last remaining untouched areas.”

On any given day, the surfers riding Lowers are among the best in California, Gardner said.

“This is where you have high performance modern surfing,” he said. “It’s not just getting in the tube; its flying through the air, doing aerials, things guys 20 years ago didn’t even dream about doing.”

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A key attraction of Lowers and the other surfing breaks in the park is their isolation. San Onofre’s five miles of coastline along the border of Orange and San Diego counties once were part of the Camp Pendleton Marine base, which is why they have been protected from development.

Lowers, like its companion surfing area about a quarter mile north called Upper Trestles, was named for the wooden train bridges that run through the wetlands at the mouth of San Mateo Creek, which empties onto the beach near the county line.

Although both are extremely popular surfing areas, Lowers offers a rider the option to go left or right on the wave, adding to its desirability.

“This is really not a spot for a beginner. You can see some of the best surfers in the world riding waves out there,” Gardner said. “It’s a reef break with a very concentrated peak. It’s also a very, very competitive spot with 75 guys out there on a day when it’s good.”

Those same reasons make it attractive to contest promoters, who pay the state $1,000 a day to reserve the beach at Lowers. It’s a place where the best surfers can show off their skills, said Ian Cairns of Laguna Beach, a former professional surfer who now heads the Bud Surf Tour, which is holding the contest at Lowers this week.

“This is one of the premier surfing spots in the world, and there are people who not only want to compete in that place, but those who want to see the best people in the world compete,” said Cairns, 44. “People are going to come down without a surfboard just to watch those guys surf. I think that’s a fair, legitimate use of a recreation area within the domain of the state parks’ stated mission.”

Nonetheless, Cairns supports the review of the policy that could limit contests at Lowers. He has seen what happened at cherished surfing areas in places such as Hawaii and Malibu.

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After an uproar among the local surfers, a strict limit on the number of contests was enacted by local officials on the north shore of Oahu in Hawaii. At Surfrider Beach in Malibu, the controversy erupted into a brawl last year.

During a contest, a competitor and the father of another competitor allegedly beat a man riding a knee board who refused to leave the competition area. As a result, Los Angeles County officials decided to limit the number of contests there.

“We have never, ever had an incident like that, but that’s because we don’t have a confrontational attitude,” Cairns said, noting that his contest will start at 8 a.m. this year in consideration of early morning surfers. “We do have a right to be there, but we would much rather be reasonable about everything.”

A limit similar to that at Surfrider should be set at Lowers, said Mickey Munoz, a legendary California surfer who often judges professional surfing contests and makes a living shaping and selling surfboards.

Contests that last a week, as many do on the professional surfing tour, perhaps should be ended, he said.

“People should be able to have contests. That’s part of surfing and has been for a long time,” said Munoz, 59, who lives in Capistrano Beach. “But they should be on a very limited basis. It’s really not fair to monopolize a beach for 100 surfers for a week, when you have 100 a day out there when it’s good.”

Lisk, a real estate broker from San Bernardino who drives 100 miles each way to surf Lowers, has his own solution. Don’t close the beach during a contest. Let the professionals paddle out and compete with the locals for waves, just like the regulars do every day.

“Let them come out there in the lineup and compete with all the rest of us,” Lisk said. “We have to compete every day for waves. Let them come on out and join us. That’s what surfing is really all about.”