Ride the Wild Wave: Surfing California in the ’60s

 

They called it the Endless Summer, and in California during the 1960s, it sure felt that way. Days bled into one another like watercolor sunsets over the Pacific—warm, golden, slightly surreal. The beaches from Malibu down to Huntington were alive with the rhythm of saltwater and Fender Stratocasters, the smell of Coppertone and the sea. Surfing wasn’t just a pastime back then. It was a culture, a movement, a heartbeat.

Down in Malibu, if you timed it just right, you might have caught Miki Dora carving elegant lines on a glassy wave, the original surf rebel dancing with the ocean like it was born just for him. Dora was a mystery—equal parts poet, pirate, and prankster—but he was also the embodiment of what surfing meant to a generation: freedom. Not the kind you wrote about in manifestos or wore on picket signs, but the raw kind that lived in your chest and screamed when you dropped into a perfect right-hand break at sunrise.

California’s surf scene didn’t happen overnight. It began in pockets—post-war kids with too much time and not enough rules, drawn to the sea like moths to neon. But it was the 1960s that set the whole thing on fire. Surfing became a kind of gospel, and California its holy land. A mythology grew around it: the tanned gods of the beach, the sun-bleached boards, the shaggy hair and mirrored Ray-Bans.

The boards, back then, were beasts. Long, heavy logs made of balsa wood, then fiberglass. No leashes. You wiped out, you swam. There was a kind of sacred respect in that—between surfer and sea, between rider and wave. Shapers like Dale Velzy and Hobie Alter were local legends, crafting boards in backyard sheds that would go on to ride the biggest swells of the decade.

And then came the girls. Not that they hadn’t always been there—watching from the shore, riding tandem, dancing to the same tunes. But the ‘60s saw something shift. Gidget hit the screen, all blonde curls and big dreams, and suddenly the beach wasn’t just for boys with boards. It was for everyone. The movies spun stories of endless love and summer flings, but beneath all that Hollywood sugar was a real cultural wave building. Girls started paddling out alone, taking their place in the lineup, laughing just as loud and riding just as hard.

Of course, music played its part. The Beach Boys weren’t just a soundtrack—they were a reflection. "Surfin’ Safari," "Surfin’ USA," "Catch a Wave"—each one a sun-soaked anthem for kids who felt more at home in water than on land. And while the mainstream danced along, the real surfers stayed out past dusk, watching the line of the horizon darken, boards floating like driftwood in the twilight.

It wasn’t all clean-cut and Hollywood though. Behind the smiles and shaggy hair, there was a counterculture brewing—less about rebellion, more about opting out. The surfers didn’t want to fight in Vietnam or sit in fluorescent-lit classrooms. They wanted to live simply, chase swells, sleep in vans. They built their lives around the tides and swell charts. Some dropped out of society entirely. Others became lifeguards, artists, even outlaws. But all of them, in some way or another, were touched by that same wild, rolling heartbeat of the Pacific.

The beaches became gathering spots. Trestles, Rincon, Cardiff Reef—each had its own rhythm, its own unspoken rules. Locals ruled their spots, and outsiders had to earn their place. It wasn’t hostile, just tribal. Like any good story, the 1960s California surf scene had its codes—sacred and strange. Wax your board. Respect the lineup. Don’t snake. And always, always keep an eye on the swell.

By the end of the decade, the world had caught on. Surfing had been bottled and sold, spread across magazines, ads, and record sleeves. The soul of it—those silent dawns, the camaraderie of the lineup, the poetry of a perfectly ridden wave—started to get harder to find. But for those who lived it, really lived it, that decade would never fade.

Ask anyone who was there, and they'll tell you: there was something in the water. Something electric. It wasn’t just the waves. It was youth, hope, maybe a little magic. California in the 1960s wasn’t just a place. It was a state of mind, a feeling you chased across highways and coastlines, looking for the perfect set.

And when you found it—when you paddled out and the ocean opened up just right, when you caught that first drop and felt the board hum beneath your feet—nothing else mattered. Not war, not politics, not the world waiting beyond the shore. Just you, the wave, and the ride.