Former Surf Spots

You should have been here yesteryear. Surfers who were can tell you: Great surf once broke at five west coast spots you’ve probably never heard of, much less visited. Of course, dinosaurs once roamed the earth, too. All are equally extinct today, but it wasn’t a meteor impact or some act of God that turned these places into former surf spots.

Killer Dana died from a succession of manmade mortal wounds — the hydrological equvalent of death by many cuts. With a name like KD, you don’t even have to ask. This Dana Point favorite had a reputation that preceded it and a wave that secured its place in history. Swell energy was naturally zoomed into the rock point and capable of generating right-hand 20-footers that held shape. It produced the closest thing to a Hawaiian wave without the air fare and was the spawner of no less than six distinct reef sections. Take your pick. From the Thirties to the Sixties, from Tom Blake to Phil Edwards, the legends held court on the point. In 1939, George Larson rode what was at the time considered to be the largest wave successfully surfed in California at Dana. The demise of the break began in 1964 when the Corps of Engineers gradually began encircling the cove and harbor with tons of granite mined on Catalina Island. After two years of incremental alterations to the area, the break had been buried under granite and its bathyspherics forever neutered. In 1966, in what was essentially a coup de grace, the Corps of Engineers declared the area “closed to all marine activities” as Dana Point harbor development project got into full swing. Interestingly, and somewhat ironically, a 50-year time capsule was placed in one of the boulders used to seal Killer Dana’s fate, containing surfing mementos from the famous pointbreak’s golden age. It’s scheduled to be opened in 2016.

RIP Killer Dana

Once upon a time, you could catch a nice ride at a break in Long Beach harbor called Flood Control. Today, at that exact same spot, you can catch the Queen Mary. Flood Control was a classic south swell right, surfable upwards of 15 feet. A sandbar deposited by the L.A. River produced the wave, which was often favorably compared to the Redondo Breakwater. No, they didn’t park the 81,000-ton Queen Mary atop the South Bay local’s favorite break. By then, it was long since history. A World War Two project to increase the size of the harbor resulted in construction of a jetty to block the swell, which effectively slammed the door on Flood Control’s clean right-handers forever.

Former Surf Spot "Flood Control"......Deceased

For south of the border flavor, it was once hard to beat Petacalco, deep in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. This former surf spot was located at a river mouth, where broad sand bars scuplted well-shaped barrels, then the flats plunged steeply into the depths — a welcome mat to swells arriving from the south. The curvature of the beach accepted energy angling clear around to the southeast and prevailing winds tended to remain faithfully offshore. Surfing in Pedacalco was brought down as the last consequence to a chain reaction cascade of manmade events in the 1970s: Japanese investment funds a steel mill 10 miles up the Rio Balsas. Increased power demand necessitates a hydroelectric dam upstream of Pedacalco. Downstream silt flow ceases, starving the sand bars that form the waves. Harbor for steel shipping creates jetties north of the break that corral the south swell, eradicating the weakened bars entirely. Ya esta. Today, 12-foot 50-pound boards left over from the glory days adorn the walls of a Petacalco restaurant, but waves are mostly shapeless close-outs and surf reports rank the spot as, at best, “Inconsistent.”

When bad things happen to good breaks, it’s almost always at the hand of humans. Many of these losses pre-date the rise of surf and coastal activism. In such cases, surfers had no alternative but to stand by helplessly as their favorite break was wiped out, literally. Successful efforts like the recent “Save Trestles” campaign, which rescued the classic OC break from the intrusion of a quasi-private toll road, show that we aren’t necessarilly doomed to deja vu. But there’s a finite supply of coastline and, like any exotic endangered species, the choicest surf spots will probably always be in somebody’s crosshairs and at risk for becoming another former surf spot.

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