Coachella Valley wave pool rivalry escalates as residents who have never seen a tide develop strong opinions about lineup etiquette

PALM SPRINGS – The Coachella Valley, a region known for golf, date shakes and afternoons hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of a Tesla, now has two competing surf breaks and all of the bad feeling that comes with them. The Inertia reported this week on the wave pool rivalry unfolding in the desert, where DSRT Surf opened to the public in September alongside the existing Palm Springs Surf Club. Former pro Kalani Robb told the outlet that both pools will have to adapt to their communities.

The communities have adapted faster than anyone predicted. In under six weeks, they have become locals.

Localism Arrives in a Zip Code With No Coastline

Gary Feldstein, 67, a retired orthodontist who moved from Encino in 2019, considers himself a regular. “I have surfed this pool since the beginning,” he said, adjusting a rash guard with the tags recently removed. “Now guys from Palm Desert roll in acting like they own the place. You do not just paddle out at my break. There is a hierarchy here. There is a wristband.”

Mr. Feldstein’s car carries a sticker reading “LOCALS ONLY (Reservation Required).” Similar sentiments have appeared in chalk on the parking structure, chalk being the only medium permitted under homeowners association rules. One message read “IF YOU DON’T LIVE HERE DON’T BOOK HERE.” Another, in neater handwriting, said “RESPECT THE 10:15 SESSION.”

Signs the Rivalry Is Escalating

• Patrons of each pool describing the other pool’s wave as “obviously fake”
• A bumper sticker spotted in Rancho Mirage: “My Other Ocean Is Also a Pool”
• A man in Cathedral City claiming to remember “when this was all just golf”
• Dawn patrol moved to 5 a.m. to beat the heat, and described by participants as “heavy” at 97 degrees
• A local print shop selling tide charts on which every entry reads “same”

Scholars Confirm the Culture Is Complete

Dr. Lorraine Okafor, a cultural geographer at a Riverside County college who studies what she calls manufactured coastal identity, said the valley now meets every academic criterion. “Surf culture requires three things,” she said. “A wave, a parking lot, and somebody telling you that you should have been here yesterday. The desert always had the parking lot. Now it has all three.”

Dr. Okafor has been collecting field recordings. “A gentleman told me the Thursday session ‘used to be so much better before the crowds,’” she said. “The pool had been open for five weeks. He was nostalgic for September. I have never seen a tradition form this quickly outside of a cult.”

The Daily Surf Report

A volunteer forecasting service now issues conditions each morning by text message. Friday’s bulletin read, in full: “Waves: four feet, every eight seconds, exactly, until closing. Wind: whatever you select. Water: 82 degrees. Sharks: none, although there is a lifeguard named Shark. Crowd: sold out.”

The forecaster, a retired air traffic controller named Walt Brenneman, said the job is harder than it looks. “People want uncertainty,” he said. “They want to wake up and wonder. I tell them it is four feet. It was four feet yesterday. It will be four feet on Christmas. A man called me a liar last week. He said it felt like four and a half.”

Seasonal patterns are also emerging. Regulars are bracing for November, when the annual swell of Canadian snowbirds arrives from Alberta with rental boards and no knowledge of the wristband system. “They are very polite,” Mr. Feldstein said. “That is how you know they do not belong in a lineup.”

Real Estate Catches the Wave

Agents have moved quickly. A three-bedroom in Palm Desert was listed this month as “ocean-adjacent” and “walking distance to the break.” Listing photographs show a man holding a surfboard in front of a mountain range and a cactus.

Agent Brenda Castellanos defended the description. “This is the coastal lifestyle without the coast,” she said. “And the coast is the part that causes all the problems. No fog. No sand in the car. No seagulls taking your sandwich. Buyers from Manhattan Beach walk in here and weep.”

Visiting professionals have been filming in the valley for more than a year, among them a Catch Surf team session at the Palm Springs pool. Locals now refer to that period as “the early days” and to those riders as “guys who surfed it before it blew up.”

City Halls Enter the Lineup

Civic pride is running high. Supporters in both cities are circulating petitions to be recognized as the “Surf Capital of the Desert,” a title that did not exist in August. Huntington Beach, which has defended its Surf City USA trademark in court, is understood to have been made aware that Palm Desert exists.

The dispute has been noticed far from the valley. Bohiney Magazine filed it under “Americans building something and then fighting over it,” the publication’s largest category. The London Prat, writing from an island with 7,000 miles of coastline that nobody will swim in, called the argument “enviable.”

The Original Declines to Comment

The Pacific Ocean, located roughly two hours west on the 10 depending on traffic through Riverside, could not be reached for comment. It has not changed its longstanding policy of free admission, unlimited session length and no guarantee of anything.

Mr. Feldstein surfed his 9:00 slot Thursday, caught eleven identical waves, and called it the best day he had had all season. He said the same thing Friday, because it was.

SOURCE: bohiney.com