Look at Refugio Beach from the freeway. Tilt your head slightly to the side and squint hard, and you’ll faintly see the words “Welcome to California” burn across the sky in hot pink. Just don’t do it while driving.
Refugio is the quintessential California beach, even if it’s not the Hollywood picture of surf and sand. There’s no Baywatch, no large crowds, no cliff-hanging mansions.
Just south from Refugio is El Capitan Beach, which boasts one of the best wintertime right-point breaks on the West Coast. Just to the north of Refugio is Gaviota Beach, one of the few convenient access points for fisherman to put their boats in the water between Santa Barbara and Avila Beach.
These three beaches are part of the state park system, and are all under threat of closure—along with more than 200 other state parks—as California politicians grasp at anything that resembles a viable lifeline to revive a sinking economy.
The three beaches and their surrounding area represent 15 percent of Southern California’s coast. The Gaviota Coast as a whole boasts 50 percent of that area’s rural coastline, according to the Gaviota Coast Conservancy. Consider, however, that a large portion of that area is privately owned, or owned or leased by the federal government, and thus inaccessible to the general public.
Alan Ihle knows how special Gaviota Beach is—he just can’t put his finger on why that is, exactly. Ihle trekked out from Nevada to fish with his son recently at Gaviota. Growing up in California, he made a similar summer trek to Gaviota with his own parents every year, since he was 5 years old. He’s now 59.
Ihle spoke in a strong, gravelly voice as he recalled growing up in the San Fernando Valley and visiting the coast.
“When I was young, we’d go to Gaviota in the summer and Death Valley in the winter,” he said.
It would be a shame if the state closed the beach he loves so much, he noted, but he’s hard pressed to say specifically what he loves. His voice softened as he tried to describe it: “It’s the setting, the train trestle, the pier. It’s just in my mind. I just like it.”
While Ihle and other fishermen know Gaviota as a spot for their sport, it’s also an infamous surfer locale, thanks to its appearance in the movie Big Wednesday.
Filmed in 1978, the surf classic drew cult status because of its spectacular surfing footage layered over a deep storyline that follows three friends who come of age in the ’60s and ’70s as they surf, face the Vietnam war draft, and struggle with growing up. The movie was set in Malibu, but much of the filming took place on the Gaviota Coast—specifically at Gaviota Pier and surrounding surf spots like Cojo.
Where that film leaves off, the story of three local friends begins. Mike Fink, Zak Claycamp, and Steve Kranz have spent time on the beaches of the Gaviota Coast since the mid-’70s.
“I remember when I was 10, my step-dad pushed me out there on a board, and I was freaking out because I thought the wave was going to ‘wreck on me,’” Lompoc resident Claycamp said. He made air quotes to emphasize the last few words.
“But I kept going, and I’ve never stopped,” he continued
Claycamp said he was about 8 months old the first time his mom, who was a surfer herself—back when women were hassled about surfing—took him to Refugio Beach. That beach is now such a part of him, he held his marriage ceremony there, taught his children how to surf there, and allowed his son to recently go through Refugio’s Junior Lifeguard program.
Kranz lives in Lompoc, works in Santa Barbara, takes his kids to Refugio Beach, and camps at El Capitan. He used to ride Styrofoam planks on the beachfront of El Capitan in the early ’70s.
“You can’t sum up all the reasons that make these beaches special,” he said. “Each person makes their own connection. Some never go home.”
Santa Maria resident Fink is the final member of this surfing trio. With the same long flowing hair he’s worn since he was a surfer in high school and the jeans and Hawaiian shirt of a guy whose mind is already lounging in his Costa Rica retirement home, Fink personifies the stereotypical California surfer.
He thinks fondly of Gaviota because it’s simply where his mom took him. It was the first place he stood up on a boogie board, when he was 11 or 12 years old. From that day on, he was hooked on the ocean. Soon, Fink would find another “family” with which to spend long days at the beach.
Fink and buddies like Kranz and Claycamp would make their way to the waves any way they could. Sometimes the day at the beach itself was most memorable—but sometimes the memory was all about the process of getting there.
“It would be [about] who had a car that ran, who had a car with gas, and every time we made it back and forth, we’d scratch an X in the steering wheel,” Claycamp said. “That meant we made one more trip there and back home [without breaking down].”
Kranz said his most memorable experience was midnight surfing under a full moon while camping at Refugio. Claycamp and Fink talk about El Capitan and the wintertime surf. They talk about catching El Cap point “by yourself,” meaning a rare opportunity to surf without the crowds lured by its classic peaks.
Claycamp said their shared experiences as friends surfing and camping on the Gaviota Coast gave them a mutual bond, a common thread that has held them together for decades.
Over the years, the friends moved away, came home, went off to college, got married, and had families—but they always come back to these three spots.
Now, however, Fink’s memories of his first wave and the good times he’s had with friends aren’t his most cherished memories, he said.
“It’s not my first wave, but his,” Fink said about his son Danny.
Fink recalled a time when Danny was about 3 or 4 and he took him surfing at Refugio. Fink rode the board on his belly while Danny stood on his dad’s back holding onto his wetsuit collar.
“He was riding me like Shamu. We rode all the way from the outside, and everyone was giving us a thumbs up,” Fink said. “Then Danny said, ‘Dad, that round thing was over my head.’”
Fink didn’t know what that meant until someone paddled up and told him they had been in the barrel—that “round thing” his son talked about was the wave curling overhead, the ultimate ride for a surfer.
Claycamp’s son, Nash, was also riding the surf as soon as he could walk. And as his own parents did for him, Claycamp continues to haul his kids to the beach until they’re too tired to play anymore.
“My son said one day, ‘Dad? Refugio, that means ‘refuge,’ right?’ And I said, ‘It does to this family.’”
Kranz pulls no punches when he talks about the state’s potential plan for the area.
“Closing the beach will not make a dent in the budget gap,” he said. “I mean, how much does it cost to keep a beach ‘open’? Obviously, those who want to close these beaches have not experienced how special they are, only seeing dollar signs for problems they created.”
As of press time, the state legislature and the governor remained deadlocked on a budget resolution, so the proposal to close state parks remained in the air. The California State Parks Foundation has watched the situation closely.
“Our feeling is it’s still a very serious proposal, and we feel that it’s likely going to happen in some form. There will be some closures, maybe not the 220 number that has been talked about, but there will be some closures,” said Jerry Emory, director of communications for the California State Parks Foundation.
Emory said such closures—whether it’s two or 220—will not only impact visitors, but will add to the nearly $1.2 billion deferred maintenance issue currently facing state parks, increasing the burden when the parks eventually reopen. The state will also have to address how it will tackle prohibiting illegal activities such as fires and homeless encampments—currently problems in the state parks—since there will be no regular patrolling.
Adding to that, the governor’s office received a letter from the National Park Service informing the state that closures of parks that have received assistance from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund State Grant Program could jeopardize future reimbursement and funding from the program. El Capitan would fall under this category. Closing properties conveyed to the state under the Federal Lands to Parks Program could also result in those parks reverting to federal ownership.
In a letter to the governor, Jonathan B. Jarvis, regional director for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service, encouraged state officials to look at other measures as a solution to ease the state’s fiscal problems: “The public has no less need for recreational opportunities and access to open space in times of economic hardship. If anything, the need for such recreational opportunities is greater now, not only due to leaner economic times, but also because of the increasing personal, community, and environmental health issues associated with more sedentary lifestyles and lack of contact with nature.”
Along those lines, Claycamp said the proposal is ironic in that there’s been a big push to get people in touch with nature, but at the same time the state is taking opportunities away in the name of money.
Kranz said it isn’t fair for the state to tax people for access to parks it’s only going to take away.
“The beach is public land, paid for by our tax dollars. If the state wants to close the beach, then they should reduce the tax on every Californian,” he said.
Fink had a different perspective. He pointed out that other nearby beaches restricted public access because they’re on private property, developed, or protecting threatened species like the snowy plover. Recreation opportunities are thus limited, he said, and beach closures would dampen his and his friends’ chances to give their children the same memories they had growing up.
“If they close these beaches, where will we go?” he said.
Contact Arts Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 16-23, 2009.
