The Closest Thing To Being Born

The Wedge has always been a source of concern to local safety officials, primarily because of the dangers that await the hundreds of young and unaccomplished surfers who visit Newport every summer. Over the past few years, in fact, the Wedge has been the scene of innumerable injuries and several deaths, but though most of Newport's surfing beaches are patrolled by lifeguards, only lip service is paid to the Wedge. This is because it is almost impossible for a lifeguard to swim out through the conflicting currents to help a man in trouble. Danger signs are posted everywhere, but they don't stop body-surfing tourists, who come from all over the world to test their skill or their courage or something. The city of Newport Beach constantly is being sued for damages due to surfing accidents, but the city always wins. "The warning signs are up, and everybody knows about it," says Justice Robert Gardner of the State of California Court of Appeal. "The reputation of the Wedge prevails every time. A citizens committee tried to close the Wedge in 1963, but we made an impassioned plea for a man's right to break his neck if he wanted to."

Gardner, an avid body surfer even now at 59, has written what is believed to be the only book devoted entirely to the sport. It is, as yet, unpublished. He seldom surfs at the Wedge anymore, but he is respectful of it and close to maniacal in his protective attitude toward the sport. "There are only about 500 people in the whole world who know how to body-surf," says Gardner. "There are maybe 25 who are good enough to surf the Wedge. That leaves 15 million flatlanders who go straight off all the time and usually fall on you while you're cutting. Sometimes it looks like there are that many at the Wedge. They're foolish. No, they're idiots." If asked, Gardner will explain that a "flatlander" is a person who does not know how to body-surf correctly. Normally this person will live inland, or "on the flats." Of course, he could live on the ocean and not know how to body-surf. This would be enough to qualify him as a flatlander, but perhaps not enough to be a "turkey" or a "goon," both of which denote incompetence. Turkeys and goons are often harassed at the Wedge by a little maneuver known as "head hopping," which is nothing more, or less, than having one's shoulders or head grabbed from behind and then having one's whole self slammed, banged, slapped, shoved and pushed under the water. It is very difficult to catch a wave after being head-hopped.

"The Wedge is nothing but a great big screaming shore break," says Gardner. "Nobody should be in there unless he knows what he's doing. Body surfing is different from board surfing, particularly at the Wedge. What's the difference? You get creamed every ride, that's what. Every ride is a disaster. I've learned discretion. I ride only what's civilized."

Gardner also points out that there is a marked difference between board surfers, who are, it has been said, scruffy, unsociable characters with a tendency toward drunkenness and rowdy behavior, and body surfers, who possess only upstanding gentlemanly qualities. Because of these attributes and contradictory philosophies regarding the best way to ride a wave, the two groups have become mutual enemies.

"Board men are just a bunch of phony hangers-on," Gardner contends. "They've improved 100-fold over the past eight years, but that's because we got rid of all the hodads. There are no phonies in body surfing. There is no glory in carrying a pair of fins. It's a basic, primitive thing. It's just you and the ocean.

"Most of the body surfers I know are employed or going to school. There are never any complaints from beachfront owners about body surfers stealing or wrecking things or using bad language. But those board guys, oh, boy! They don't like body surfers because we're in their way. Well, the rule of the ocean is that a man coming in on a wave has the right of way, and it ought to be obeyed. I rode over a board-surfing guy at Brooks Street one time and flipped him good. I've dumped people who were purposely in my way. You hit them, you understand. I got right up on top of a board surfer recently. He was there deliberately. I hit him right in the middle of the back with my knees. He was out of the water the next time. He learned his lesson. You have to hit them to survive in the water. Why do board surfers try and force us out? There is no place in the body-surfing picture for maladjusted people."

Don Redington, a former All-America swimmer at USC who now runs a real-estate-appraising company in Los Angeles, was one of the first men to popularize the Wedge. He says it used to be a normal progression for a waterman to body-surf before he moved on to board surfing. "Now most of them skip body surfing," says Redington. "It's because they're bad swimmers. They don't want to make the effort of swimming out to the wave when they can paddle out on a board. Board surfers regard us as low-class incompetents, but we were capable swimmers first. Board guys hunt for waves in mush and garbage. We're much more selective. Some people claim I was the first to head-hop at the Wedge. Well, if I was, I'm not ashamed of it."

Among the few who are accomplished in both board and body surfing is Mickey Mu�oz, a surfboard shaper who once doubled for Sandra Dee in faraway action shots in a surfing epic of the '50s. Mu�oz, 33, credits himself, along with Joe Quigg and Carter Pyle (a former Stanford tackle), with rediscovering the Wedge. Quigg and Pyle have since moved to Hawaii, but Mu�oz is still active in Dana Point, where he drives a Ford van containing many surfboards.

"The Wedge had been a body-surfing spot 15 and 20 years ago," Mu�oz says, "but then nobody surfed there anymore because it was too dangerous. We started riding it again about eight years ago, and we told people to come down and try it. The Wedge helped revolutionize body surfing. We had to develop a radical style just to survive. When we started we made only about 5% of the waves. When we were through we made 75%.

"The reason was that I brought back this new riding technique from Hawaii, where Buffalo Keaulana had broken away from the classic style and dropped his outside arm below his body to act as a hydrofoil. That's what did it for me. Back when we were riding, the Wedge was considered pretty far-out stuff, something really neat. Now it's a rite of manhood in Newport. The Wedge has always been very bitchin', but the group there is pretty much divorced from the rest of the surfing world. They're isolated. They're too far out on the peninsula."