Early morning Malibu slides. Photo: Dylan Gordon
I arrived in the morning, unbalanced from my flight the previous day, with buttons fastened to the wrong holes, and watched Malibu emerge from the night and the marine layer’s shroud.
Unpacking my surfboard, I went through the ritual of preparation: fin slotted into box, screw tightened, wax rubbed onto deck, eyes distracted by the peeling of perfect waves. I had done this before under Cornish dawns, but never with such a sense of history. I visualized the masters of the art riding this wave in the ’60s, blissfully unaware of anything inspirational. As the sun broke over the cliff and brought me back, I reached for the cord attached to the zip of my wetsuit, pulled it up to the back of my neck and, board-under-arm, waited for a break in the LA traffic streaming southward on the Pacific Coast Highway.
There were already two people paddling out; they would have arrived in the dark. I ran across the road to the beach on my toes like a dancer, looking for the steps that would lead me to the sand. It was smaller than I had imagined, having seen pictures in magazines taken from the sea. The wall was shorter and closer to the shore, the sand was dirtier, and a reef emerged from the water like a birthmark. Standing for a moment on the edge of the land, I waited for a wave to come and send that mild shiver of excitement into my skin before taking three, four steps and jumping on my board.
I paddled out to the side beyond the insistent foam and over the unbroken swell advancing like the lines of a page. Once out back, I didn’t wait long, I turned to catch my first wave in America. The journey was short, from first point to the pier, but passed in remarkable clarity, starting with a drive off the bottom, calves pushing board down then rail connecting with water and racing up, up toward the cascading lip. Then I glanced up, down the line–that hallowed view. The wave was refracting around the point, bending harmoniously, then a feeling, the weight of a wave willing me forward and I stepped, toes crossing toes, until I reached the tip and was weightless for an instant, and more. It is the closest one can come to flight, joining a line of Pacific swell for the end of its journey at the point break of Malibu.
