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Spot: Malibu, CA [mal·a·boo]
34°1′50″N, 118°46′43″W
All the Southern California clichés come true at Malibu: Blue skies and sunshine, hot cars on every corner, pretty girls under every rock, swimming fools and movie stars.
The last best place south of Point Conception, Malibu is a very prosperous, refreshingly un-screwed up beach town that somehow manages to be rural, 20 minutes from 20 million people. Malibu has a lot going for it, and right in the middle of town is a classic California sand and cobblestone point that takes surfers back to the source of many things: Style, nose-riding, occasional good vibes.
The Good
A beautiful California wave, when it wants to be, Malibu on a big southern hemisphere or west swell is all about the agony and the ecstasy. The big days don’t happen often enough and when they do, it’s crowded. But be smart or lucky and grab a wave from the crowd at the top of First Point, ride it almost all the way to the Pier and step off on the sand, and you will be hooked. But it’s a love/hate, on again/off again, inconsistently dangerous addiction that will drive you crazier than crystal meth.
The Bad
Malibu just doesn’t break often enough. Great south swells happen maybe a half-dozen times a year, and that is a shame. Because if there was a God, Malibu would be six feet every Wednesday, with the swell dropping to Saturday, and coming back up on Sunday. Every week, 7/52. That is what the world needs now.
Because Malibu has been famous since 1959 and is 20 minutes from 20 million people, and because it’s so rarely good, and because there are several video cameras pointing at it, and radio and online surf forecasters telling the entire LA basin there is a swell coming two weeks in advance, Malibu is one of the most crowded surf spots in the world. On a big day, First Point Malibu looks like a Wilbur Kookmeyer cartoon: Seven and eight surfers on one wave is common, as experienced surfers and newbies driven crazy by those beautiful waves forget all the rules.
The crowd can be shitty and so can the water. Heal the Bay regularly gives Surfrider Beach an F grade, as it is polluted by the outflow from Malibu Lagoon and creek, which is polluted by runoff from Cross Creek, and leaky septic tanks of the stars. Surfers have gotten very sick and even died from the surfline at Malibu.
In May 1992, a 20-year old surfer became nauseous after surfing Malibu. Getting sick after surfing Malibu is something modern surfers have learned to live with – locals call it “Maliflu” - as Malibu Creek is polluted by runoff from the San Fernando Valley, wastewater from the Tapia Water Treatment plant, leaking septic tanks of the rich and famous and runoff from parking lots and landscaping in the middle of Malibu.
The surfer’s symptoms grew progressively worse and doctors isolated coxsackie B virus from him. The surfer subsequently died from damage to his heart, caused by a virus usually associated with diabetes. It was impossible to prove the surfer contracted the virus from polluted water in the surfline at Malibu, but doctors could not find any other source.
The Strange
This is how Malibu was described in The Surfing Guide to Southern California in 1965: “Chief cause of arguments, accidents and general brouhaha is large number of people who sit farther inside and paddle into waves ahead of surfers who are already riding and thus have the right of way. However there is room for a few surfers to sit inside and take advantage of waves missed or goofed by those at the point. Even then, more than about twenty surfers make the water seem crowded. Usual summer crowd in the water: 40 – 100.”
More than 40 years later, it is exactly the same.
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