Tower 15 Jetty at Will Rogers was exactly Lord of the Flies and it actually broke pretty good from time to time (never bothered with SunSlop). But always froth and I endured a bit of grom abuse there too.But see, that's weird. All the surf kids are in surf schools? And just for the summer. Then they turn in their softboards and go home until next summer. Nobody went to surf schools when I was a kid. That was for val/souther kooks. Summer surfers. The jetties in front of the house where I grew up used to be packed with 12-20 year old surfers. Frothing packs of groms hunting down anything resembling a wave. Gone. There are more houses, more people living on the beach, but the kids don't show up for the most part. When they do it's with mom or dad in tow. We were on our own. Things were way more Lord of the Flies.
It will be interesting to see what surfing looks like when the current crop of 50 year olds ages out. Interesting for someone who lives long enough to see it anyway. Will crowds actually decline?
Fast forward to this last summer, ran from Bel Air Bay Club to MDR Jetty and back, surf was meager in that Will Rogers zone, 1-2' dribble, and packed with softtops. Mostly new-age hipsters in their 20s/early 30s from what I could tell. In the 45 total minutes I ran that stretch:
Waves successfully surfed: 0
Waves successfully paddled into: Also 0