At Trestles, Everything’s Swell

The place: Lower Trestles, Camp Pendleton.

Event: U.S. Bud Tour, Sept. 14-19. Surf: 3 feet to overhead first few days, then gradually dropping from waist to shoulder height with some overhead sets.

Every morning it was blowing offshore and just barreling big, said Rockin’ Fig, who was the contest announcer . It’s Southern California’s premier south swell break. And, it was going off.

But why should we pay attention to this contest now, Fig?

Because, it got the best waves. When you dream of a contest to surf in, this is it. Usually, contest surf in California is 2 feet, junky or walled. At Trestles, you get the right tide, the right swell and the right conditions, and it’s epic. It’s everyone’s dream.

Plus, former winners here include world champ Kelly Slater, Jeff Booth from Laguna Beach and Christian Fletcher from San Clemente. The year Fletcher was throwin’ those big air maneuvers and the prize money was bigger in 1989, when he won $30,000. It’s a prestigious event.

It’s not like the Op Pro at Huntington, where there’s like 500 million thousand people. It’s like more of a hard - core event. People who are down there are from the industry, you know, surfers themselves who wanna see some good surfing.

More than 200 competitors were there, including a contingent of bodyboarders. I understand they took advantage of the good surf, too. Fig, who was there bodyboarding?

Some big-named surfers such as Mike Stewart, five-time U.S. champ Ben Severson, Harry Antipala and runner-up Chris Tennberg. Brian Wise from San Clemente went ballistic and took first.

What kinda stuff are bodyboarders doing in contests?

He did an assortment of barrel rolls and reverse belly 360s.

Shane Beschen of San Clemente won the short-board division, by taking out Rob Machado of Cardiff, in one of the hottest finals on the Bud Tour. Machado set the pace early, but Beschen came back.

On one wave, he went straight up the lip, into a floater, and tail slide--just mixed it up .

And long-boarders?

Israel Paskowitz of San Clemente took first, defeating Joey Hawkins, the world champ. Joel Tudor took third, and he was super casual. Tudor would go up to the nose like taking a little jog and yank up his oversize trunks to keep ‘em on.

Best Upset: Featured top pros Richie Collins and Jeff Kramer getting double interference on long boards, by crisscrossing on the same wave, which opened the door to Ian Cairns, a last-minute fill-in.

They both wanted to go in opposite directions and CHING! They nearly hit each other and got eliminated, giving the heat victory to Cairns, the Bud tour’s contest director.

Contest Joke: With news of the strange Hantavirus being found in some deer mice in San Clemente, Figgy said surfers kidded each other all day long.

They were afraid of finding glow-in-the dark mice at nearby San Onofre nuclear power plant.

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Respects: Fig joined 400 other surfers and friends who paid their respects to Steve North, 27, a big-wave rider from Huntington Beach, who died two weeks ago in a car accident in Hawaii. Figgy said about 250 surfers got in the water for a memorial paddle out at the pier Oct. 4.

It was the biggest paddle-out ceremony I’ve ever seen. Imagine 250 surfers holding hands and someone in the middle saying a prayer. Some even swam out there. The last send-off for ‘ol North, whose favorite surfing spot was the pier’s north side.

Figgy said North--a 6-foot-tall, solidly built surfer with curly hair--did odd jobs, like laying tile around town. When it came to riding waves, North would use a very, very narrow, mini-gun--whether the surf was 2 feet or 10. Those in attendance included former world champion Peter Townend, long-board champ Joey Hawkins, surfing legend David Nuuhiwa Jr. and North’s parents.

Forecast: Sean Collins’ at Surfline/Wavetrak says we’ve had a great Southern Hemisphere swell in this week, with 3- to 5-foot waves up to 7 feet at some of the better southwesterly breaks. The swell will be dropping . . . but another southwest swell is expected for the weekend, picking up Saturday through Monday.