I spent nearly two weeks in and around San Clemente. Prior to going there, i didn't know much about it. It was the Western White House when Nixon was president. I knew it was home to Trestles, world-class surf break. And it's headquarters for three major surfing pubs: Surfer, Surfing and Surfer's Journal.
Then I got there and the picture became a little clearer.
Surfing dominates the landscape. Every other car has surfboards on the roof racks. Liquor stores, auto mechanics, taco stands, coffee shops and even sushi restaurants use the icon of a surfer in their logo; restaurant menus are frequently mounted on surfboards. There's Surfin' Donuts, San O Liquors, San O Mechanics. Places like the Bagel Shack have walls covered with vintage surfing pics, while the Antoine's Coffee Shop has a vintage wooden board as its exterior sign. In addition to the surfing magazines, Surfrider Foundation and the Surfing Heritage Foundation are both based in San Clemente. You might be standing in line at Starbucks and see a pro past or present.
Trestles attracts hundreds of surfers a day - and it can hold that many because the break is actually four breaks spread over more than a mile. There's Cottons, Uppers, Middles and, most southerly, Lowers. On any given day, whether it's 2-4 feet or 6-8 feet, the parking lot next to Carl's Jr.'s is hopping with surf vehicles of all kinds. Surfers make the mile-long trek down to the break by foot, on skateboards or on bikes with special surfb0ard racks. Then you have San Onofre State Beach, or San O, just down the road.
Huntington Beach and Santa Cruz fought in court over which one could claim the title Surf City. Huntington Beach won out, but to me HB is a town dominated by malls, a huge power plant and some back-yard oil-drilling "grasshoppers." Santa Cruz is a great place - and no disrespect to the shaper of the Pumpkin Seed, Michel Junod, or the guys who surf Maverick's -- but I think San Clemente should have had a legitimate shot at the title Surf City.
I guess I still didn't understand the magnitude of how embedding surfing was in San Clemente till I took a walk along the back-streets as well as the main drag, Camino Real, intending to photograph every surf shop.
I started at the Rainbow Sandals outlet, then moved down Calle de los Molinas. I stopped in The Factory, where I met legendary shaper Terry Martin (a meeting documented elsewhere on this blog). I passed the studios of surfboard artist Drew Brophy, who is next door to shaper Terry Senate. Not far away is Ghetto Glassing, which glasses surfboards and has a great sticker on the front glass saying, "Fuck your China made surfboard." Just up the street is the Weber Surfboards shop, now run by Dewey's son Shea Weber. Next door to that is a bar called Mulligan's, where you can bet some of the area's best shapers have thrown down a few brews. The area on Molinas, a back-street semi-industrial area, is also home to numerous auto-body shops, though to be fair they're really restoring vintage cars like VW bugs, old VW buses, dune buggies and the like. Molinas is also home to O-Fishl Surf Products, Cole Surfboards and a couple of other unnamed surf shops.
Out on the main drag, El Camino Real, there's Timmy Patterson's surf shop, OC Surf & Sport, Icons of Surf (which my friend Bill Rosenblatt calls "a candy store for surfers"), BC Surf (started by Brian Clark, I think, and now under new ownership), a Hobie shop, Killer Dana (a satellite store), DBC Ride Shop, Stewart Surfboards, Artist/Shaper Paul Carter's San Clemente Surfboards, Rip Curl and Trestles Surf Outlet. More than a dozen surf shops.
On a given night, you can see a premier of a new surfing movie.
Possibly most important, southern Orange County is blessed with consistent surf and amazing weather. On a recent day at San Clemente Pier, the surf report on the white board said "Water 75, Air 76." You can't get any better than that.
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