Malibu, The Land of the Chumash!

In an ironic twist of reality and physics, the farthest point from the epicenter of the turmoil caused by the awesome power of those ocean swells would yield the best quality waves. Even thousands of miles away from the storm center would pose no logistical problems for the untamed open ocean rollers propelled by sustained winds of more than 200 m.p.h. for a period of nearly trhee weeks.

The rest is history. Their arrival at Malibu Surfrider Beach, a few miles from the heart of one of the biggest and most congetsted metropolises in the world, was no accident. They timed their appearance at the "Bu" (aka Malibu) nearly at the precise moment as the huge ocean swells initiated their assault on Southland beaches.

The question arises: of all the places they could have chosen to go, why here? Certainly there must exist some trolpical paradise that rates at least as good as Malibu--sans the insane parking conditions and survival tactics used by the maxed--out crowds, where "Darwinism" has become the secret for catching waves and maintaining one's position in the pecking order. Why, indeed! From the dawn of Creation, the lagoon at the mouth of Las Virgenes Creek had poured forth its sediment-- sand, rocks, and boulders being ejected out of the steep canyon walls--during a milennia of Winter storms.

Not unlike colors painstakingly and expertly applied to a canvas, or a block of clay hewn to a beautiful form by its sculptor, so too the bottom of the ocean floor had become perfectly contoured to bend and shape the distant swells of the South Pacific, nearly ten thousand miles away. This is the wave that earned the nickname, "King of the Coast". It is the yardstick by which every wave in the world is measured. The traveling surfer, wishing to find out about the wave conditions at a particular beach, may be briefed in the following manner: "yeah, it's a great spot, not as fast as Malibu, a little mushier, more 'section' than the 'Bu, not as many rocks, the wind blows more sideshore, more lined-up, but not as perfect at low tide, with a slower inside section...", ect.

For the "Bu" is not just a breaking wave on a stretch of sand. To the experienced surfer, it represents in a most classic way, the very epitome of the perfect of Creation. The waves, seemingly honed in a machine-like fashion, are a symbolic model of the most profound "Will of Creation," the metamorphic balance between two extremes ( the kabbalistic term for beauty, "tifereth"). It was this balance that our three Aussie friends had sought ouit: neither the humongous, absolutely hairraising Antarctic giants, nor the smaller, easier breaking rollers of lesser quality.

Perhaps, too, it is no coincidence that it was the Chumash Indians that had migrated to the Malibu coast, residing, as it were, in the realm of "tifereth" (Chumash, or "five", in Hebrew, corresponding to the blueprint of Creation. See Rashi, Genesis 2-4), a balance between the primordial forces of nature, representing harmony through the adherence to a Divine Will.

Our three young travelers had come to the "King of the Coast" to start a revolution in Surfing! History will record that it was at the "Bu", that August of '68, that the "short-board" began in ernest, forcing the awe-struck surfers who witnessed the Aussies' wonderous surfing, to junk their ten-foot long logs and order the shorter, sleeker shapes pioneered by the watermen from Down Under! Perhaps it was an auspicious moment in history, in the surrounding aura of the "Chumash", that there would be instituted a further step toward a true balance and real "beauty"!