How Santa Cruz’s surf and skate underworld of the 1980s sparked a punk counter-culture movement.
Posts Tagged: surfing
Local Surf Legend’s Dream Project
Post meth and alcohol addiction, Darryl Virostko hosts Labor Day Luau to make his “Fleahab” a reality.
Crowds Gather to Watch Mavericks
From the rocky beaches of Half Moon Bay, Mavericks’ famous wave breaks don’t look large enough for aquatic-minded squirrels on water skis. And even during Sunday’s gridlock morning traffic on Highway 1, rubbernecking drivers couldn’t have made out the jersey colors on the surfers gliding the frigid walls of blue water if they squinted. But two miles from the shore, the most dangerous big wave surf competition on the West Coast was underway—where the ocean swell can snap surfboards like toothpicks in the mouth of a bulldog, as it did for competitor Rusty Long in the first heat.
2012: A Santa Cruz Weekly Year in Review
Santa Cruz Weekly presents our look at Santa Cruz’s year of the strange, cool and just plain ridiculous.
A Fundraiser for Hicko
It’s 10am and Thomas Hickenbottom, one of the founding fathers of Santa Cruz surfing, is showcasing lattices of berries and fruit trees laden with the summer’s bounty in the Eden he has helped to create around his Westside home. Breathing deeply, he presses the stoma that has replaced the vocal chords he lost to cancer and whispers excitedly about the fundraiser being held in his honor on Saturday, July 21.
First-time Surfer Would Rather Float
My two most vivid memories of the ocean: being bashed in the surf at 7, an intimate introduction as sand scraped half the flesh from my left shoulder. Six years later an undertow dragged me out. Kicking and screaming for my life, I eventually dragged myself back in.
Surfer Looks to Expand Unique Rehab Efforts
Darryl “Flea” Virostko needs a house, preferably near the waves, hopefully with sports equipment. Not for himself, but for the greater good. The big wave surf legend behind FleaHab, a support program for recovering addicts, says he’s reached the point where he realizes he could help more people if FleaHab had four walls, a roof and a few beds.
PaddleFest to Draw Spray, Crowds
The lineup of surfers anxiously awaiting a clean drop at Steamer Lane this weekend will have to wait a little longer. Here come three days of competitive surfing with a twist—the best paddle-powered wave riders the world over are set to take the beach by storm. After whipping wind and hail cut short the quarter-century-old competition last year, the Santa Cruz PaddleFest is back.
