If you know, you know. If you don’t, no amount of explaining is going to make you understand what it means to stand there at dawn, wetsuit half-on, watching the sets roll in. This isn’t Malibu poseur bullshit. This isn’t trust fund kids playing at danger on longboards their daddies bought them. This is cold water. Real cold. The kind that makes your face hurt and your fingers go numb and reminds you that the ocean doesn’t give a fuck about your Instagram feed or your artisanal coffee or whatever tech startup dream you’re funding with inherited money.
Steamers Lane is a proving ground. Has been for decades. Long before Silicon Valley types discovered Santa Cruz as a “charming coastal getaway,” surfers were getting worked here. Getting held under. Learning respect the hard way. The locals, not the weekend warriors from Palo Alto, they’ve got that look. Weathered. Alert. They know which rocks to avoid, which tides to respect, which days to stay home.
Edward Abbey has it right in the quote below. “May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous.” That’s surfing at The Point. That’s what makes it matter. The loneliness of being out there before anyone else, just you and the cold Pacific and the possibility of everything going very wrong very quickly. Abbey was talking about desert canyons, but he could have been talking about this. About putting yourself in a position where nature gets to decide whether you live or die, and all your money and education and clever opinions mean absolutely nothing.
The thing about real surf spots, not the sanitized beach breaks where instructors babysit tourists, is that they demand something from you. Respect. Humility. The understanding that you’re a guest in an environment that was here long before you and will be here long after. The Point gives you that in spades. Cold water clarity. The kind that strips away pretension and leaves only what’s essential.
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