How do local surfers feel about Surfer Magazine naming Santa Cruz the number one surf spot in the country?
“No duh,” says surfer Ken “Skindog” Collins.
“Obvious,” echoes surfer Bubb, as the two sit outside of Pacific Wave Surf Shop.
“It’s killer, because it’s true,” says Collins.
Across the street at O’Neill, manager Elfin Saffer has more nuanced feelings. “I don’t know how I feel,” he says. “It draws too much attention to an already overcrowded town.” He thinks for a second. “But it is true,” he says.
Earlier this week, the July 2009 issue of Surfer gave us the title, calling Santa Cruz “a blue-collar town with a largely home-grown surf community, with “big waves, secret spots, outer-reef bombies…even a world-class right-hand reef-point in Steamer Lane.” All this may be true, but with great popularity comes scads of obnoxious tourists – then again, that ship has probably sailed, and in this economy, not everyone is complaining.
“The tourists are really important,” says Saffer. “There are still enough underground spots. There’s something to be said for localism. It’s not all bad.”
“It’s good for business, it’s good for the culture,” says Pacific Wave employee Alex Rohrig. “Ten years ago it might have been a bummer, but now it’s inevitable.”
Not everyone is happy about this, of course, and already someone has posted a rebuttal to the magazine’s website. “Can I be the first to nominate Huntington Beach to take the No. 1 spot in place of Santa Cruz? It’s way too sharky up here, the water’s cold, and everyone’s mean,” said one poster.
Collins, of course, has a counterargument. “They’re posers!” he says. “There’s not one good wave in Huntington Beach. There’s like 50 killer waves in Santa Cruz.”
Huntington Beach, notably, did not make the magazine’s list.
