Tag Archives: Seattle surfers

TRIPPING in Seattle on the Last Friday before Halloween and… Poetry 101 (as in Surf Route)

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Erwin Dence illustrations, Erwin Dence surf illustrations, hipster surfers, northwest surfing, real surfers, Seattle surfers, surf adventures, surf culture, surf fiction, surf novels

I hadn’t really planned on going to Seattle. I had forgotten that I had an appointment in Silverdale to check out the progress on my left eye (looking good after the last surgery, should get the oil out in, like, January), and since I was over that way anyway, and TRISH mentioned that DRU, who had just gotten disturbing-but-(of course)not 100% verified) news about her ongoing disputes with cancer, was going to go over to meet WENDY, someone our daughter met in her first year at LOYOLA UNIVERSITY in Chicago, there with her husband, JON, and I said, “Oh, maybe I could go…also,” this turning, instantly, into a commitment.

Jon, Wendy, and Dru. lost tourists in the background bemoaning that “The place where they throw the fish is closed, pre-8 O’clock.” “Yeah,” I said, to Jon and Wendy, not to the tourists, “It still smells… fishy.”

BECAUSE I wasn’t planning on going to Seattle, I was wearing Crocks. “Not a problem,” Trish, who wasn’t going said, “You’ll walk on, and then you’ll get an UBER.” The ferry terminal at COLEMAN DOCK and the roads in the vicinity have been in a constant state of destruction/construction before and since September of 1978, my first trip to the northwest. Every time I go through there it’s different. The current structure was, no doubt, designed after the oversized structures Hitler’s favorite architect designed. AND walking on from Bainbridge is, like, lengthy. AND you can’t just go out in front and jump in a cab. Actually you can, but we were going to Uber, and Dru has an app, so we walked, like, two piers north (Spring Street if you’re savvy) before we could figure out where a car could pull in, what with the long, plant-filled structure blocking the outside lane of southbound Aurora. Meeting up with Jon and Wendy, the plan was to walk down to Pike Place Market. “It’s only two blocks,” Jon said. No. two blocks over, two blocks down. In crocks.

I AM SUDDENLY REALIZING, as I’m one-drafting this, that I should either do a serious version or just get to the highlights. Or both. Lots of walking. Lots of people. Groups of: Tourists; Buffalo Bills fans; Halloween celebrants in costume (including a staggering drunk catwoman, a woman in a physics-defying top taking photos with others in, you know, other, less memorable costumes); an angry dudes talking to himselve; very very happy dude kind of twerking and singing.

It’s not that I PEOPLE WATCH, but… yeah; can’t help it. ON the way back, crush of people headed home, one way or the other, I noticed a guy (because he reminded me of a friend) with a man bun, a kilt, and oversized glasses. There he was, Dru and I limping along the boat to land walkway.

“I’m ready to go back to ______ (unnamed spot on the Strait that requires extensive walking/climbing).”

I’m not. I’m sore. OH, one last thing: When Dru and I were almost to the parking lot, her van in spot #7, thankfully, I reacted to a smell I identified with, “Smells like skunk,” before I realized the smell, at once sweet and somehow a bit harsh, was… something else. Just laughing was enough for Dru. “You know,” she had said, “Bainbridge Island votes 100% democratic.” “100%?” “Well, almost.”

Three Poems basically revealing that I am so happy I don’t have to live in Seattle:

                  Limerick  Seattle surfers at ferry docks wait, You just want to check out the Strait, At its best it’s quite iffy, You can’t get there in a jiffy, You’ll arrive… just a little too late.

(or early; couple of hours, couple of days, couple of weeks)

                  Haiku Just missed the ferry, I may as well drive around, Settle for Westport.

                  Ode Oh, if I was a Seattle surfer, I’d feel so alive, Maybe I’d live in Fremont, Somewhere west of the I-5.

I’d have a built-out sprinter van, No V-dub or Subaru, Three boards in board bags on the rack Like other city surfers do.

And I’d study all the forecasts, Surfline premium’s a must, And every five-star rated day, It’s on the road or bust.

I’d be out there on the highways, In the darkness before dawn, Or I’d be waiting in the ferry line, Hoping, praying I get on.

Or perhaps I’d drive to Seaside, Maybe Short Sands or Westport, Hoping all Tacoma and Portland folks  Adopted wing-foiling as their sport.

There is one code that I live by, A truth yet to be debunked, Don’t ever head out to the Strait Unless you’re willing to get SKUNKED.

Apology/explanation I understand how frustrating it is to be hours away from the possibility of waves worth surfing. During Covid, quite a few surfers moved over to the Olympic Peninsula, particularly those who could work anywhere they could get a signal. It didn’t take too long for many of them to realize how frustrating it is to live here. AND, there are so many easy amusements in the big city.

All original material protected by copyright. All rights reserved by the author, Erwin A. Dence, Jr. Another chapter of “SWAMIS” will be posted on Wednesday. PUBLISHERS- I have a publisher showing some interest in my novel. They have questions as to my potential audience, my goals. I am working on a response, but , MEANWHILE, if you are or know a writer’s agent, or if you have connections with an actual, non-vanity press, let me know. Leave a message at my home/office (360)765-3212.

NON-POLITICALLY SPEAKING, Please write down all the reasons you would vote for Citizen Thrump (moral character, intelligence, empathy/narcissism level, religious-ness, allegiance to our country and our rule of law, whatever other bullshit you can think of), CONSIDER that you actual reasons for even considering voting for one of the more despicable human beings ever might have more to do with your own grievances that an honest appraisal of a serial lowlife, and, you know, don’t vote for the asshole.

Is Seaweed Actually Magical? And…

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, Uncategorized

…and another “SWAMIS” cutback. FIRST, here on the Olympic Peninsula, buoys, designed to help ships not sink or crash, somewhat helpful for surfers trying to determine if some portion of some swell might find its way into the Strait, have been ripped from their anchors, set adrift, lost, found, or, we don’t really know, put out of service. Putin? One theory. None of the downed or drowned bouys have been put back into service.

SO, surfers in, say, Seattle, have been relying on surf forecast sites before making a decision as to whether to invest the increasing amount of gas money, wait in line at ferries, face traffic slowdowns if ‘driving around.’ NOW, it must be mentioned that there are always waves of some sort or shape or size on the actual PACIFIC COAST. Almost always. AND the most characteristic condition on the Strait is flat. Flat with east wind, flat with north wind, flat with south wind, flat and somehow blown out with west wind.

STILL, surfers get desperate. So, trying my best to glean something positive from whatever sources I could, I went up Surf Route 101, looking. I wasn’t alone. More to not get skunked than to satisfy my surf lust, I ventured into calf-high curlers, my fin popping across rocks. PERHAPS BECAUSE I had paddled out, three more adventurers joined me. PERHAPS BECAUSE they had believed some forecast site, I passed many surf rigs on my way back down Surf Route 101. NOT ONLY THAT, but a friend of mine texted me, asking if I had scored bombs. AFTER ALL, Magic Seaweed was saying…

NOW, maybe it got awesome. Somewhere, for some brief period. MAYBE. YES, I did look at various forecasts. Not looking good for the Strait. Depressing. I must now upgrade my most recent session to “Pretty good. Didn’t break a fin.” Again, there are always waves on the actual ocean.

The rocks at Swamis, someone dropping in on someone. Taken from some hotel brochure.

MEANWHILE, I am trying to find some time to continue cutting my manuscript for “Swamis” down to a reasonable and, hopefully, saleable length. Tightening it up. I am up to the days after Chulo is beaten and set alight next to the wall of the SRF compound. This is a (copyrighted) version from the second completed draft. I might mention that, if you have any experience surfing on the west coast, you know (a snippet of a quote from Miki Dora about Malibu) “The south wind blows no good.”

CHAPTER 14- SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1969

Three full days after Chulo’s murder, the burn-scarred section of the wall was back to white, visibly white even in the minimal pre-dawn light. I wasn’t sure if I had actually slept. I got out of bed at four, got to Swamis early enough to park the Falcon in the choicest location; front row, ten spots from the stairs; the optimal view of the lineup.

The Falcon was the same car in which my dad had taught my mom to drive, the station wagon, three-speed manual transmission. This was the car she used to drive her two boys to swimming lessons, and church, and to my appointments with a string of different doctors; and to the beach; surf mats and Styrofoam surfies and whining Freddy, maybe an annoying friend of his. The factory installed (optional upgrade) roof racks were now pretty much rusted in place.

The difference was the Falcon was now my car. A surfer’s surf wagon. Hawaiian print curtains hung on wires, a “Surfer Magazine” decal on the back driver’s side window, a persistent smell of mildew. Beach smell. With my boards now shorter, I usually kept them inside, non-hodad-like, but, for several of the reasons a hodad would do it, I kept the nine-six pintail on the roof for a while longer. “Just in case the waves are really small,” might have been one excuse.   

A predicted swell, this gleaned from other surfers and pressure charts in the Marine Weather section of the newspaper, hadn’t materialized, and a south wind was blowing. Cars with surfboards were passing each other up and down 101. Surfers were hanging out in parking lots and on bluffs and beaches, talking surf, watching the few surfers out at any spot bobbing in the side chop. Maybe it would clean up, maybe it would actually get bigger. And better.

I would wait. Waiting is as important a part of surfing as trying to be the first one out or paddling out before the best conditions hit.  Just before. My shift at my weekend-only, for-now, job didn’t start until ten-thirty; about the time the onshores typically get going. Different with a south wind. Sometimes it would clean up as some weak front moved inland or simply fizzled. Sometimes.

If I went out at nine, I could get a good forty-five minutes of surfing; maybe ten waves or more. I had my notebook, college-ruled; I had the four and eight track tape player under the passenger’s side of the seat; a collection of bargain tapes purchased at the Fallbrook Buy and Save; and I could do what I always did, study. My father’s billy clubs sized flashlight, four new d batteries, provided the lighting.

Read, recite, memorize, reread. That was my system. Less important details fall off with each attempt to memorize. The facts and details best remembered, by my logic, would most likely be the ones on the tests. Any quirky anecdotes, something that amused me; yes, I remembered those, too.  I had another system for multiple choice tests and standardized tests. Two of the four choices were obviously incorrect, fifty-fifty chance on the others. Best guest. The system worked surprisingly well, well enough that California’s supposed Ivy League university accepted me.

My father hadn’t understood why I couldn’t go there.

I was a faker, kid with a system; it never would have worked; not in that bigger pond, every student top of some class somewhere. 

No studying on this morning. I had to sneak over to the crime scene, the wall that surrounds the Self-Realization Fellowship compound. There was (and is) a wrought-iron gate in the higher, arched (former) entrance, around the corner, facing 101. As with the other breakpoints in the wall, that section is topped with the huge gold sculptures, each one representing a blooming flower. Lotus blossom. They could as easily represent a flame, not dissimilar to the one on the statue of liberty, not dissimilar to the burn marks on the wall my friends had described.  

The SRF compound is a place where people, on their own, go seeking enlightenment, a realization of the true self.  Seekers, seeking.

At about seven-fifteen I did walk over. Had to. I expected more. I expected some instant and obvious explanation.  There was a man by the wall, wheel-barrowing soil from a pile near the highway to the wall, raking it in. I had seen him before. Dark skinned. East Indian, I presumed. He was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, white, with faded blue workman’s pants, rubber boots, and heavy leather gloves. Most of his face (and I knew he had a beard) was covered in what appeared to be an overlarge (plain cloth) bandana, a standard bandana (red) around his nose and mouth, and a tropical straw hat (quite different from the cowboy style Mexican farmers and landscape workers preferred). He dropped the new soil around newly planted but full-sized plants.

There was no evidence that something horrific had occurred. The new paint blended perfectly.  The plants looked… it all looked exactly the same as it always had; as it did even in the late 1950s, before I surfed, when my father took us there just so my mother could see the gardens.

If I blinked, I thought, it might be like taking a picture. I might remember details. I might remember better. Image. Catalog. File.

Blink.

Frank Crippen and North by Northwest Surf Shop

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Something About Surf Shop Owners

You already know that anyone who works in a surf shop is automatically a good surfer, one, and automatically cool, two. Too. What’s apparent to me is they’re sort of automatically, and sometimes cruelly, honest.

Really, is being honest cruel?

I’ve been going into Frank Crippen’s Port Angeles store, North by Northwest Surf Shop since I got back more fervently into surfing nine or ten years ago. Yes, he automatically thought I was a Kook. And he was right. My skills hadn’t instantly come back after years of neglect. My wave knowledge was still there, but muscle memory…

Of course, I did drop a few local PA names. “Hey, you know Darryl Wood?”

“Of course. He came in here this morning on his way to…”

“His way where?”

I think Frank actually rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to tell me, fifty-something formerly (and only self-professed) real surfer.

Fine. “Cold water wax.”

“Only kind I carry. Sex?”

“What?”

Sexwax. Oh, yeah. Now, what I do appreciate about Frank is his website, nxnwsurf.com

I can access the available cameras (nothing on the Straits), get a forecast, get the actual buoy readings. I check it at least daily, sometimes multiple times.

By cruising through his shop occasionally through these years, my surfing progressing so very slowly, and by seeing him on several surf checks in the area, and by always giving him a report on where I surfed and how much better it could have been, and complaining about all those Seattle surfers who read the same forecasts… somewhere Frank has gotten a little friendlier.

Oh, not discernibly friendlier. I have, being honest myself in my assessments, said Frank lacks people skills.

This doesn’t mean he can’t make a sale. I witnessed him sell about three hundred bucks worth of wetsuit and gear, some for skiing in the nearby Olympics, in about one minute. The brother of the guy trying on the wetsuit broke out his card. Maybe it’s all because he seems difficult to impress.

“And a beanie?”

Image

 

So, okay, here’s the Frank Crippen Quote:

No, first, I have to say that I told Frank that Al Perlee, owner of The Surf Shop in Westport, when I told him I wanted a smaller (than my 9’4” piggie model) board, had told me, “No; you won’t be happy. You’re too old, too fat, and you don’t surf enough.”

Brutal.

Okay, now Frank’s Line: “It’s easier to get a bigger board than to get in shape.”

So, even you Seattle surfers: check out and support your local Straits surf shop. Maybe you can impress Frank; I’m still working on it.

Mostly I want him to link realsurfers.net to nxnwsurf

Archie took this photo after I bought some new gloves. Yeah, the ones in the photo. “They’re thinner, but they keep you warmer.” “How long do they last?” “No gloves last forever.” We were on our way back from surfing at… somewhere on the Straits. Ask Frank; let me know if he tells you. Let me know if he rolls his eyes.

Hey, I forgot to ‘tag’ Al Perlee. When you’re down in Westport, tell him I have mentioned him several times on realsurfers.net Now, Al is actually about my age; not sure how big a board he rides. And, he was right; I’ve gone bigger; it was either go big or go home.