Summer is here and the Thrill is Back! This episode featuring Herbie Fletcher and friends at the California classic, first point Malibu.

Another great Ocean Park Surf Contest is in the books and the completion was excellent. We got lucky as we have for many years with great sunny weather and decent waves for the contest. The overall story this year is of competitors growing up with the contest and moving through the divisions, as well as veterans getting some good results after sticking with it for many years.


Once again held in the heart of Dogtown, the 7th Annual Ocean Park Surf Contest took place on Saturday, July 15th. The contest area was just to the north of Tower 26 in Ocean Park, Santa Monica. Once again the beach filled up with familiar faces, as well as several new surfers, some traveling from San Diego.


The trophies reflected this year's fun theme, a take-off on a popular TV show with a similar name.




Venice Beach celeb, Oscar, of Hecho en Venice clothing, one of the contest sponsors, cooked up some home-made chili to pour on the hot dogs and nachos, keeping our surfers and spectators well fed.



Some surfers like Rene, were getting in some practice waves just south of the contest area, check out that session: OCEAN PARK - SATURDAY 7-15-2017



Ocean Park Surf & Skate Club has been putting on this contest for seven straight years now, with help of several local and national sponsors, such as ZJ Boarding House and Kind Snacks



Now on to the contest surfing:

Page 2 - Body Surf

Page 3 - Girls Surf

Page 4 - Boys Surf

Page 5 - Juniors Surf

Page 6 - Super Masters Surf

Page 7 - Masters Surf

Page 8 - Mens Surf

Page 9 - Womens Surf

Page 10 - Results & Awards Ceremony

Page 11- Closing & Links to all the Complete Photo Galleries

Tomorrow, July 26th join Surfrider LA and their special guest Dr. Chris Lowe of CSU for a very special chapter meeting to learn about one of the ocean's most awe-inspiring and misunderstood predators... sharks! "With more and more shark sightings taking place at our local beaches we think it's a perfect time to bring in Dr. Chris Lowe of the CSULB Shark Lab to discuss the history of great whites in southern California and why their presence seems to be increasing. Dr. Chris Lowe is a professor in marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), where he and his students work with acoustic and satellite telemetry techniques to study the movement, behavior and physiology of sharks, rays and gamefishes."

The Rapp @ 7:pm
1436 2nd Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Small/Modest Surf Now; Tropics on Fire.

LOLA wave heights in the eastern North Pacific showing TS Greg, Irwin and Hurricane Hilary.

Small/Modest NW windswell and SSW swell blend this week
Multiple tropical systems in EPAC
Minor tropical swell mixes in for exposures
Larger surf likely this weekend/early next week

More info: Electric Native

Film/Edit Beth O'Rourke

About Walk on Water

A WALK ON WATER provides Surf Therapy to individuals with special needs.

We do this by hosting Surf Therapy events that celebrate and honor courageous kids, adults and their families. For one beautiful day at the beach, there are no labels. Everyone is an athlete.

The goal of Surf Therapy is for the athletes to feel the thrill and confidence that only "A Walk On Water" can provide. Their families are fully supported and cared for as they share a much deserved day of fun, relaxation and respite.

We work closely with the local community, businesses and its volunteers and watermen. It is a true collaboration of likeminded individuals brought together in service of a shared mission - to help others experience the calming and therapeutic effects of the electrifying, living ocean and in the process showcase the best of surf culture.

AWOW's extensive list of partners, along with our structure and volunteer base, bring each Surf Therapy event to life and facilitate an overwhelmingly positive experience for everyone who attends.

Surf Therapy healing us all!

The Sea Sick in Paradise Art Show includes plenty of images inspired by the idyllic side of surfing — the toned bodies, the clear water, the perfect wave. Ferus Gallery veteran Billy Al Bengston’s Lost at Sea, 6:00PM is a long, horizontal, two-toned acrylic that suggests a calm ocean under a coral-pink sky. A few steps away, Jeff Ho's mural Black & White, which says “Locals Only” in white letters on a black background, clashes with the more romantic depictions of beach culture.

“There’s always been a problem of access to some beaches. Now we have more awareness that the problem does exist, but there’s always ways around it," says Ho, whose Zephyr Productions was a mecca of surf and skateboard manufacturing in '70s Santa Monica and sponsored the original Z-Boys of Dogtown. "I believe that everybody can kind of coexist, people that live on the beach and people that want to use the beach and have access to the beach. But there has to be some kind of communications."

On Thursday, July 13, Depart Foundation hosted a panel discussion at Malibu Civic Theater called “The New Lineup: Surfing, Sea-Level Rise, Access and Inclusion in the 21st Century.” On hand were some of the artists in the show, including Christine Blanco from Brown Girl Surf. Her gouache, Indian ink and watercolor Sharks shows three nonwhite women in wetsuits, waiting for their convertible as an aqua-green wave breaks behind them.

The moderator was Professor Jon Christensen, co-author of a 2017 UCLA study showing that people making less than $40,000 a year were less likely to visit the beach. Sixty-two percent of respondents said limited public access, lack of affordable options for parking and overnight accommodations, and limited public transportation were among the obstacles that kept them away.

“We have to go beyond technical solutions to thinking about changing image and everyday culture,” Christensen says, pointing to Brown Girl Surf’s program that brings girls from underprivileged neighborhoods to the beach. “They can see themselves there and see themselves reflected in the coast and the ocean. The ocean is not someone else’s place. It’s theirs, and they have a way to access it.”

A graduate of Art Center and Yale School of Art, Yao says diversity depends on the beach. “Malibu has this territorial thing that kind of mirrors the community, the exclusivity and whatever,” she says, suggesting San Onofre for diversity and Orange County for Republicans. “I would say compared to the ’50s, maybe it’s a question of structural inequalities, if you think about how race and economics are structured. Maybe people from a certain race aren’t afforded the opportunities to have leisure time.”

Artist Billy Al Bengston used to surf in the ’50s and ’60s when the scene consisted of a handful of white guys. Ironically, it took a woman to catapult the sport to the quintessence of cool. “It was primarily a good old boys' club until ‘Gidget’ showed up, and then it was still a good old boys' club with a ‘Gidget,” he says of the popular Sandra Dee surf-set ’60s saga that borrowed Bengston’s nickname, Moondoggie.

According to Yao, many surfers of Bengston’s era were also into motocross, partially proven by the fact that Bengston supported himself as a semi-pro racer before his art began to sell. Similarly, Ho’s boards, known for their style and finish, became some of the most coveted boards on the coast.

“Finish fetish came from both motocross and surfing,” says Yao, listing artists like the show’s Chris Ballreich and David Donahue, whose genre is rooted in Bengston’s era. “The connection between those people, Bengston and Ken Price and that generation, and the young people, they made a lot of their own crafts. They were working on motorcycles and they came to understand materials and how to do this work.”

Bengston remembers when, if there were more than a dozen people out in Malibu, it was too crowded to surf. Today, they come from everywhere. “It’s really diverse,” Yao says. “You see a spectrum of people from all over L.A.”

Ho agrees it’s a bit better now compared with the ’70s, when he was one of a few Asian-American guys building boards. “The beaches are changing, and so is our society and how we view things.”