Somewhere, probably six or seven years ago, still rather early in my surf comeback, still trying to get to a reasonable level of ability and style (and I’m still working on that), I encountered Trina Packard on the inside at my most-frequented spot on the Straits. It was an above-average day (the real, every-day-counted average probably somewhere close to flat), with quite a few rigs in the parking area, and it was a session in which I noted, and, no doubt wrote to my old surf buddy, Ray Hicks, I caught eight waves before I ever actually made it to the outside lineup.
I was pretty proud I had improved enough to go to my old approach; taking a few on the head, dodging a few surfers on waves, dropping into a few.
Paddling along the rim of the lefts, both Trina and I were picking off waves surfers couldn’t quite catch, or couldn’t make the section. “If no one else wants this one,” Trina said, possibly a veiled message of ‘back off, old guy’ inherit in the phrasing (and the determined ‘going-for-it’ look), “I’ll take it.” And, of course, she did. Several times.
A year or so later, in the same parking lot, Tim Nolan (still older than i am) and I discussing why the waves could have been here, should have been here, but weren’t, after I’d recited Trina’s quote back to her and Tim, and, because we must all apologize, sort of, for sessions in which we’re a bit more aggressive than average, Trina explained that she’d just returned from Australia and was pumped up. At this time she had been working in graphics and web design in the Port Angeles area, but said she might have to move to the Seattle area (area).
“Oh, too bad,” Tim and I, no doubt said, thinking of all the surfers we run into, most of whom disappear to somewhere, possibly even worse than the big city across the Sound. “I’ll still be surfing,” she said. “Of course,” we said.
I ran into Trina two different times at the Surfrider Cleanwater Surf Contest in Westport (with a year in between in which I didn’t volunteer to ‘help’ and assist the judges- great fun for me). This is really like me running to the bathroom, her ready to go into a heat. “Good luck,” or “How’d you do?”
So, it wasn’t really too surprising, a few weeks ago, on a day when the coast was out of control and the Straits over-crowded; while I, already surfed-out, was taking the ever-longer walk out to check out what the dam removal had done to the surfing spot at the Elwha River, I passed Trina and a friend headed back to the parking lot. She has moved to Westport, she said. She did well at this year’s Cleanwater (second, as I recall, in Women’s Longboard). There had, evidently, been some discussion that some volunteers had hogged the judging assistant spots, and I missed this year’s contest. Maybe next year.
So (again with the ‘so’), here’s why I care: I also have a background in art. I appreciate anyone who can be good enough, persistent enough, gutsy enough to make a living at it. It’s hard. Like another surfer-turned-actually-professional artist, Todd Fischer, who I first met when he was a plumbing contractor working on some of the same projects I was doing the painting on, Trina seems to have figured some way to make a living from art AND live close to the beach
And, again; good luck.
Real Surfers 
Erwin,
If it’s of any value to the surfing community, I’d like to recite some first-hand oral history about Pt. Grenville.
I surfed there from 1967 to -69, when I was in high school. We just showed up with surfboards and camped for the weekend, without any fuss from “authorities.”
Then, in 1969, we showed up as usual, and a truck pulled up and a well-spoken, close-shaved Indian came over to us in an very authoritarian manner, and spoke to us ominously, “Where are you boys from?”
“Bremerton,” we said.
Then he looked at the rock cliffs covered in grafitti, and most of it was the names of various high schools painted in great big letters in a wide variety of colors.
He paused and said, “If I looked up at these rocks and saw ‘West Bremerton,’ or ‘East Bremerton’ written here, I’d arrest you and put you in jail. But as it is, you can just leave.”
So we got kicked out, and never went back. Good thing us Bremerton guys specialize more in thievery and violence, and “school spirit” was for “soces.” Besides, our writing skills were sketchy, anyway.
In 1970 I heard that some friends tried to go there, and the Quinaults confiscated their boards and they had to pay fines. I left the state in 1970, and have not heard anything about it since, except for your piece on this web page.
BTW, concerning Washington surfing at the time, I had the feeling that Pt. Grenville was the only place, because the waves were dependable. I wasn’t part of any big surfing “scene,” because there were so few of us, so I don’t know if there were many guys scouting all the coastline in the state, looking for a good break. In those days, I’d never heard of surfing at Westport. (What’s more, I lived the 1970s in San Francisco, and never heard of Mavericks, though no one else seemed to know about it, either.) People in Bremerton were always going there for more fishing. When we got out of high school, it seemed like everyone went to Hawaii, got jobs, and stayed for awhile.
Aside: We didn’t use wet suits. When I was aged 6 to 9, I spent the summers living in a tent and a beach cabin at La Push, because my father was a commercial fisherman out of there & Neah Bay. My mom told me, “Just wait till you get numb, and you can play in the surf all day.” She was right. Last time I did it was 2010.
Clint Burks
So, I really don’t know anything about Mr. Burks except that he must be about my age, possibly another member of the class of 1969. And I have heard a few stories about Point Grenville in the mid 1960s, some which might explain why the beach was closed. Still, the image of some waves peeling off that point…
Here’s my latest illustration: