Nick Gabaldón Day honors the legacy of L.A.'s early surfer of color! Celebrate Nick with us on June 1.

Nick Gabaldon (1927-1951) was a pioneering surfer of African American and Mexican American descent. He was the first documented surfer of color in the Santa Monica Bay. Gabaldón’s passion, athleticism, discipline, love and respect for the ocean live on as the quintessential qualities of the California surfer.


In 2013, with the help of African American historian, Alison Rose Jefferson, Heal the Bay joined forces with the Black Surfers Collective to amplify and expand their prior Nick Gabaldón efforts.

Nick Gabaldón Day in its current form is now in its 7th year and will be held on June 1, 2019. This innovative celebration provides an amazing opportunity for broadening outreach, action, and education to connect Angelenos with their cultural, historical and natural heritage.


The shoreline and waters at Bay Street in Santa Monica were an active hub of African American beach life during the Jim Crow era. This beach was popular in the 1900s to early 1960s among African Americans, who sought to avoid hostile and racial discrimination they might experience at other southland beaches. Racial discrimination and restrictive covenants prevented African Americans from buying property throughout the Los Angeles region, but their community’s presence and agency sustained their oceanfront usage in Santa Monica.

In 2008 the City of Santa Monica officially recognized the “Inkwell” and Nick Gabaldon with a landmark monument at Bay Street and the Oceanfront Walk.


Nick Gabaldón Day introduces young and old from inland communities to the magic of the coast through free surf and ocean safety lessons; beach ecology exploration; and a history lesson about a man who followed his passion against all odds.

The Black Surfers Collective, Heal the Bay , Surf Bus Foundation, Santa Monica Conservancy , The Wilderness Society and other organizations partner on the Nick Gabaldón Day experience to reach out to families in under-served communities to inspire, engage and empower them through meaningful educational programming. We are helping to build personal and shared experiences with cultural, historical and nature heritage and civic engagement that are the foundation of stewardship, and the development of the next generation of civic, heritage conservation, and environmental leaders.

Check the Heal the Bay Event Page for more info.

Nick Gabaldón Day 2019 Event Schedule
9am Welcome Ceremony at Bay Street Beach & Memorial Paddle Out for Nick
10am-1pm Free surf lessons, beach exploration and cleanup. Surfers must register in advance
12:30 Raffle at the beach
1pm-5pm The Nick Gabaldón Day celebration continues at Heal the Bay’s Aquarium under the Santa Monica Pier (Aquarium Admission is free in honor of Nick!*)
1pm Documentary “12 Miles North: The Nick Gabaldón Story”
2pm Children’s Story Time with Joel Harper
3pm Documentary “White Wash”
4:30pm Documentary “La Maestra (The Teacher)”.
*The Santa Monica Pier Aquarium will be free for all visitors in honor of Nick on Saturday, June 1st thanks to a grant from the California Coastal Conservancy and the Wilderness Society.

Heads up! For you dawn patrollers, Caltrans will be closing the right lane of Pacific Coast Highway (SR-1) overnight in Santa Monica and Topanga this week for paving work. Closures will be in place from 9pm-5am. Here's the notice:

Dale Hope has spent his life in the garment industry in Hawai’i. He inherited his parents’ clothing business, bought and served as creative director of the legendary Kahala label, and worked with Patagonia to help develop our Pataloha collection.

The Patagonia Santa Monica store will have Dale, author of ‘The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands,’ give a fascinating presentation about the Hawaiian shirt. They will have a hula performance, a live Hawaiian band, snacks and refreshments. Also have books for sale and signing.

This event is free. Doors open at 7 PM. Event starts at 7:30 PM

Don’t forget to come in your favorite aloha shirt to be entered into a product raffle!

Patagonia Santa Monica store
1344 4th Street ,
Santa Monica , California , 90401



Can't make it, or want the book now, you can order via Amazon:

View this post on Instagram

Flooding out at the Pico-Kenter #mothernature #⛈⛈🌊🌊🌩🌩

A post shared by Joe Felix (@bigjoe1972) on May 22, 2019 at 3:09pm PDT

ZJ Boarding House

Wetsuit sale happening right now at ZJ Boarding House ! Save up to 50% on select wetsuits.

ZJ Boarding House
2619 Main St. Santa Monica, CA
(310) • 392 • 5646
Store Hours:
Mon - Sat 10am - 7pm
Sun 10am - 6pm

Bay Street Boards is having a sale: , 25% off on all their winter gear. It's still gloomy and cold these mornings, stock up on some new hoodies, long sleeve t's and beanies in their store or order online.

Bay Street Boards
🌴☀️Santa Monica ☀️🌴
Surf & Skate Shop
3216 Santa Monica Blvd
310.310.2485
Mon-Fri 10a-8p Sat 10a-7p Sun 10a-5p

Here's a couple shots from Sunset taken around noon on Monday. These photos were shot by Six12 Media.







You can find these and a few more photos from this session, all full size and in high-resolution, in this photo gallery:
Sunset - Monday 5-6-2019 Gallery

If you were out there, we probably got some cool surfing shots of you, go check them out!


Wanna see photos from previous days at this and other surf spots?
Click Surf Spot Galleries for a list of past days.

Bel Air Bay Club Jetty, 1939.
In the late 1930s, Santa Monica teenager Don James roamed the California coastline with a band of friends and their 90-pound wooden surfboards. They slept in lifeguard huts and lived off of abalone scooped from the ocean, and avocados and oranges pilfered from nearby farms. They did it all in the name of surfing, which had recently landed in their home state.

James had seen Tom Blake’s surf photographs in National Geographic, and at the age of 16, he began taking his own with his dad’s Kodak Brownie—the first camera marketed and accessible to non-professionals. The black-and-white photos he made in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s show his friends riding waves in tandem and replenishing themselves after a long day in the water by catching lobsters, strumming on ukuleles, and lounging under palms.

He became one of the first to chronicle the culture developing around surfing as it spread south from Malibu to Santa Monica and San Onofre. By the 1960s, when the sport broke into the mainstream, James remained one of its most celebrated documentarians. Surfer Magazine tapped James and younger photographers like Ron Stoner to shoot the exploding California surf community. He updated his craft as the technology changed, too, eventually capturing teeming surf contests and crowded beaches in color.

Ralph Kiewit, Jack Quigg, Dick Reed and Roger Bohning, Malibu 1939.
During the post Gidget era his talents appeared in commercials and on posters, Don James has been described as "The Premier Photographer of Surfing".

Don's beloved best-seller book is finally back in print, Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume: 1936-1942 , tells the story of the heady and innocent years of Santa Monica's nascent surf scene just prior to America's entry into World War II. Beautifully designed, this intimate, album-sized collection of photographs, printed in rich duotones and evocative color, captures the optimism and experimentation, the styles, the flirtatiousness and the freedoms taken--all from an insider's point of view. They were made by the young Don James, a teenager who documented the scene with his father's old Kodak folding camera when he wasn't up on a longboard himself. Out in the surf, down on the sand, aboard somebody's boat, dancing around a campfire, back-flipping off the lifeguard stand, collecting lobster, drinking at the bar and generally wearing as little as possible, here are the regulars of the southern California beach scene, un-self-conscious and perpetually glamorous, alongside loving portraits of the beach and the ocean themselves.

"It was a balmy Sunday and the news about the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor was coming in over the radio. We were paying $60 a month for rent, which was split three ways, and life was good. Suddenly everything had changed. We all knew we were going off to war." For the half-decade preceding World War II, photographer Don James and his cronies lived in the balmy Eden of the southern California coastline, surfing from San Onofre north to Point Dume. "Surfing is life all the rest is details," someone once philosophized. In Don James's six-year diary of life in paradise, surfing is indeed life, but the beauty is in the details. James's sun-drenched remembrance of a paradise lost introduces us to a cast of golden children that Bruce Weber might well envy, and leaves us with at least one mystery: What ever became of Jack Power? According to Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume , "One day he walked down the beach and was never seen nor heard of again." Where did Jack Power go? Into the sunset, no doubt. Where the details hide. Imagine surfing a perfect blue wave on a 90-pound redwood longboard, off a deserted beach of sparkling white sand. Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume takes us back to the halcyon days of pre-war California, when the earliest American surfers were busy inventing beach culture. Meet these tussle-haired free spirits who camped on the deserted beaches of Southern California, had lobster bakes and luaus with local Hollywood girls, and surfed at a time when nobody knew what surfing was. The beautiful and nostalgic photographs that surfer Don James took of himself and his friends capture the lost Eden of the California surf dream in all its glory and innocence.

Here's our monthly recap of links to all the Surf Spot Photo Galleries and Videos we have for the entire month of April. Unfortunately, it's been another slow month. Because of the lack of waves , there are only 2 surf photo galleries, both are from California Mermaid Photography.



Santa Monica

Wednesday 4-17-2019 Gallery Photo


Venice

Wednesday 4-17-2019 Gallery Photo

Back in the 1980's the skaters of Venice Beach, California had to make due with what they had: an old abandoned pavilion on the boardwalk and a few scraps of wood. What they did with those limited resources helped change skateboarding forever.

A stretch of Santa Monica Beach that was once a gathering place for black Angelenos could find a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. That's the goal of black heritage activists who are gearing up for their next step in the drive to designate the 55-acre site near the end of Pico Boulevard once derogatorily known as “The Inkwell.” By Jorge Casuso
From left: Grace Williams, Albert Williams, Mary Mingleton, Willie Williams (no relation) in the segregated section of Santa Monica beach known as the Ink Well ca. 1926 (Shades of L.A. Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)

A stretch of Santa Monica Beach that was once a gathering place for black Angelenos could find a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

That's the goal of black heritage activists who are gearing up for their next step in the drive to designate the 55-acre site near the end of Pico Boulevard once derogatorily known as “The Inkwell.”

On May 8, California’s State Historical Resources Commission will review the nomination at its quarterly meeting in Palm Springs, activists said.

The Bay Street Beach Historic District, according to a draft of the National Register application, is "a rare example of an African American seaside recreation and leisure site as well as a community cultural focusing point."

Alison R. Jefferson, a prominent black historian who is co-sponsoring the application, said the designation makes "the history of the African American experience in the region more visible."

She is urging supporters to help by writing letters backing the nomination that are due on Tuesday, April 23. For instructions click here .

The designation -- which "aligns with the goals" of the California Coastal Commission’s landmark environmental justice policy adopted in March -- provides "a little more symbolic equity and social justice for all," Jefferson said,

The nomination's co-sponsor, Sea of Clouds, a nonprofit that focuses on preserving coastal places, says "The Inkwell" represents a part of the Jim Crow era that should not be forgotten.

“As much as beach recreation and sport are indelible parts of California’s identity, so too must be its history of exclusion in these public spaces," said Michael Blum, the organization's executive director.

"A National Register listing will work in service of the personal stories, remembrances, and connections to the Bay Street beach area, as it sits within a changing city, coastline, and climate.”

The Bay Street Beach Historic District became an extension of Santa Monica's black community and a destination for blacks living in Los Angeles shortly after the turn of the 20th Century.

The "period of significance" begins in 1908 when the Phillips Chapel Colored Methodist Episcopal Church building was purchased from the Santa Monica School District and relocated to the corner of Fourth and Bay Streets, according to the application.

The church became "an anchor for local African American spiritual and community life," the application said.

Soon, the beach just four blocks away became a haven for black beachgoers, who "faced exclusion, harassment, even violence" in other coastal areas.

The period ends in 1965 with the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA), which along with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ended "an era of de jure discrimination and segregation," the application said.

If the Bay Street Beach Historic District makes it on to the National Register, it would join an estimated 8 percent of the 93,000 properties and 1.4 million individual resources that represent women and minorities

The designation would help to better represent "the breadth of the American story," Jefferson said.

Info on this year's Santa Monica Pier SUP event has just been announce:

The ultimate beach festival awaits! Kick off summer at the Santa Monica Pier 360 June 22-23.

Tracing its roots back to the 1930's when paddleboard races first caught a wave at the Santa Monica Pier, the Santa Monica Pier 360 Ocean Sports & Beach Festival offers epic competition through a variety of disciplines on sand and sea. The family-friendly day will provide memorable entertainment and competition, including: Short Course Paddle, Long Course Paddle, Elite Races, SUP / Paddleboard Knockout, Ocean Swim, Beach Volleyball, 3k Sand Run, Youth Sports and more!

On the pier deck there will be live music, entertainment, a beach history museum, the epic Beer & Spirits Garden and more!

Register and get all the details here: SM Pier 360 Event Page.

It's all not SUP though, up on the pier there's a pop-up surf museum, and for the skateboarders, there will be a mini-ramp set up again, along with surf/skate vendors like Bay Street Boards .

Check out these new surf shots from Santa Monica. These photos were taken by California Mermaid Photography.




You can find some more photos from this day on :

California Mermaid Photography Facebook Page

If you were out there, there probably is some cool surfing shots of you, go check them out!

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, Herringbone Santa Monica partnered with our friends at Surfrider LA to get you geared up and saving our coastlines. 🌊☀️ Enter to win a reusable Klean Kanteen, bamboo utensil kit, a reusable shopping bag & a $50 gift card to Herringbone Santa Monica. Deets below! ⤵️

To enter:
1️⃣ Follow @surfriderla & @herringbonesm on Instagram
2️⃣ Like the post with the above photo on @herringbonesm
3️⃣ Comment on that post with your fav beach!

The Bay Street Boards shop video premiere is finally here 4/20 🔥🏁 Come thru Saturday afternoon for the premiere party 🎈🎉 There will be food drinks and all types of fun!!!

Bay Street Boards
🌴☀️Santa Monica ☀️🌴
Surf & Skate Shop
3216 Santa Monica Blvd
310.310.2485
Mon-Fri 10a-8p Sat 10a-7p Sun 10a-5p

Captain Remy Smith is showing comedian Kevin Hart how to be a Lifeguard at the Santa Monica Pier.

Spring sale happening this weekend at ZJ Boarding House ! Save up to 70% on Apparel, Bikinis, Wetsuits, & Accessories! Save on Killer deals throughout the entire shop–inside and outside! Parking lot starting at 10am Friday March 22nd-24th and again Friday March 29th-31st.

ZJ Boarding House
2619 Main St. Santa Monica, CA
(310) • 392 • 5646
Store Hours:
Mon - Sat 10am - 7pm
Sun 10am - 6pm

On March 23, Red Bull and 300 college students will be embarking on a unique road trip from the beach to the snow, for the ultimate “California Dream Day.”

They’ll begin the day by picking students at several local colleges, including Santa Monica College and USC, then heading down to Huntington Beach for an early morning surf, and then hop a bus up to Big Bear for a shred session at Big Bear Mountain Resort’s Red Bull Plaza.

Open to all college students, it’ll be a chance to experience something that makes Southern California such an awesome place to live: surfing and snowboarding in the same day.



The $35 ticket includes transportation to/from several Southern California college campuses, as well as some food and, of course, a Big Bear lift ticket.

Students will also be joined by Red Bull athletes to further elevate this one-of-a-kind experience. The whole event is expected to last about 12 hours.



It’ll be a day for SoCal college-aged surfers and snowboarders to really push the limits of what’s possible in the Golden State.

Check out the Red Bull site for all the details about pick-up times and locations, as well as purchase tickets. They are only $35. Space is limited to 300 people.

Join Surfrider LA on Saturday for the quarterly volunteer orientation where you'll have a chance to hear from local Surfrider LA activists about their campaigns and programs and how YOU can get involved protecting our local coastal resources. The orientation will last from 10-11AM with a beach cleanup to follow from 11AM-1PM. All are welcome! Bring your family, bring your friends, and come learn about the great work that's being done to address global ocean issues right here in your own back yard. Your coast needs you and we can't wait to dial you in!

NOTE: Surfrider LA is the good Chapter of Surfrider. It's the Surfrider California Chapter that promotes a known racist, sexist individual and her scam.