With the turning of the season from summer into fall comes the yearly drop in temperatures. Both in the air and in the seawater.
Here in beautiful Orange County, we are lucky that our temp changes are not all that dramatic. Honestly, our temps don’t change all that much in comparison with most other places in the world. The water never really gets all that warm or all that cold.
That said, it still gets cold. Even when it’s warm, it’s kinda cold, if you ask me. I prefer the tropical waters that are 80 degrees or more. Here in OC it “normally” ranges from the high 60s in summer to the mid-50s in winter. In other words, for surfers this means we live in a “Wetsuit Zone.”
To be comfortable surfing, it is preferable to own at least one wetsuit and ideally two or more.
The good news is that there are tons of great choices in modern-day surfing wetsuits, and they are all very reasonably priced in comparison with most other things these days. Most serious surfers have at least a couple of boards and a couple of wetsuits on hand at all times.
This was not always the case. When I first started surfing in the mid 1950s, we didn’t have surfing wetsuits at all. And the only surfers with more than one board were a small handful of big wave riders over in Hawaii.
I grew up in Surfside, just south of Seal Beach. We had a small group of locals who surfed, of which I was one of the youngest.
Sometime in the late 50s, we all got together and went to a dive shop up on Signal Hill in Long Beach and got fitted for wetsuits. They were thick, had long sleeves and what was called a “beaver tail,” which wrapped between your legs and snapped in the front. Nobody used those.
It was impossible to get one of these things on without a ton of talcum powder. Getting them off was no piece of cake either.
This was also before they sewed them together, the seams were just glued. I remember one day I came home from school and my wetsuit had the seam coming apart behind my shoulder. I didn’t have any rubber glue, so I just stapled it up and paddled out. Unfortunately, I stapled it from the outside, resulting in getting cut. Hey, I was a kid.
Finally, wetsuits that were actually designed for surfing and not diving came on the market. Thanks to Jack O’Neill and the Meistrell Brothers (Dive N’ Surf), who pioneered the surfing wetsuit market.
At first we had short legs and no arms, but soon there were all kinds of options to choose from. And they got comfortable and easy to get on and off. This was a huge step forward in the progression of surfing equipment. Just as with the surfboard designs.
One of my favorite sayings came from a wetsuit ad for Body Glove in SURFER magazine back in the mid 1960s that featured Mickey Munoz. His now-famous quote from that ad is “It’s better to be warm than cold.” Classic.
I still remember when I first saw that ad and read the quote. My immediate thought was, “Well, yes, he is totally correct. It IS better to be warm than cold.” This is typical great Mickey Munoz logical humor.
The thought has stayed with me my whole life, and I have used this quote a zillion times for a zillion different reasons. Like heading out of the house to go somewhere and deciding if I should take a jacket or not. There it is: “It’s better to be warm than cold.” I have even used it on my wife when she was miffed at me for some obviously unfair reason. “Hey baby, it’s better to be warm than cold.” This might have gotten me smacked, not sure. But it is just such a great saying.
So, that’s my story for this week, and as fall is in full swing, don’t forget: “It’s better to be….” Awhooooo!!!!!