Memorial Day Marks Annual Transition to “Just Wearing Trunks and Suffering Silently” Protocol

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA — In what meteorologists are calling “entirely predictable” and surfers are calling “a personal betrayal,” the Pacific Ocean responded to Memorial Day’s unofficial end of wetsuit season by dropping its water temperature three degrees overnight, demonstrating once again its commitment to teaching Southern California a specific lesson that Southern California refuses to learn.

The Annual Agreement and Why It Doesn’t Work

Southern California operates on an informal but widely observed social contract regarding wetsuits and seasonality. From approximately Memorial Day to Labor Day, the agreement holds, one surfaces from the ocean in board shorts or a bikini, regardless of actual water temperature, because summer is psychological as much as meteorological, and appearing in a 3mm spring suit on the Fourth of July invites a form of social judgment that even experienced surfers find uncomfortable.

The Pacific Ocean, which did not sign this agreement and has not been informed of its terms, operates on its own schedule, which is governed by upwelling patterns, offshore wind systems, and what oceanographers describe as “thermocline dynamics” and what surfers describe as “the reason I have a headache right now.”

This year, as in approximately every year within living memory, the transition from wetsuit season to boardshort season coincided precisely with a period of cold upwelling that brought water temperatures in the Southern California Bight down from a relatively hospitable 64 degrees to a considerably more character-building 61, which is the temperature at which water begins taking your fun seriously.

The Suffering, Documented

At dawn patrol sessions from Malibu to San Clemente, Memorial Day weekend surfers arrived in boardshorts, entered the water with expressions that transitioned quickly from anticipation to stoicism, and then surfed for the customary amount of time before exiting with the blue lips and chattering teeth that are the unofficial uniform of ideological commitment over thermal common sense.

“It’s fine,” said virtually everyone emerging from the water at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, in the tone of voice that means the opposite of fine. “It’s actually kind of refreshing.” This phrase, “kind of refreshing,” is what the human brain produces when it is simultaneously cold, proud, and unwilling to admit having made a poor wardrobe decision.

The wetsuit, which was invented in California by a UC Berkeley physicist named Jack O’Neill and a former Navy frogman named Bob Meistrell — both of whom were trying to solve the specific problem of the California ocean being cold — remains available for purchase at approximately every surf shop between Oxnard and the Mexican border. Its use in summer, however, is governed less by physics than by social dynamics, which are equally immutable and considerably less rational.

The Boardshort As Philosophical Statement

The decision to surf in boardshorts in water that is technically below the threshold of comfort is, at its core, an assertion: I am from Southern California and the ocean is my element and I will not be dictated to by something as arbitrary as degrees Fahrenheit. This position, while admirable in its commitment, does share certain structural similarities with the petition to the Pacific Ocean discussed elsewhere this week, in that it addresses the natural world on terms the natural world has no particular interest in honoring.

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which has been monitoring Pacific Ocean temperatures since 1916, has noted that California coastal water temperatures in May and June are frequently cold regardless of what the calendar says about summer, a finding that has been available to the public for over a century and continues to surprise the same people every year with remarkable consistency.

Inland Californians, who drove to the beach for the holiday weekend with the explicit expectation of swimming in warm water, had a different experience from the surfers, who are trained for oceanic disappointment. Several inland visitors stood at the waterline, felt the temperature with their feet, and made the rational decision to enjoy the beach from a horizontal position on a towel, which is a perfectly valid form of beach participation that does not require entering water of any temperature.

By the end of Memorial Day weekend, informal surveys at multiple SoCal breaks found that approximately 40 percent of surfers had quietly returned to their car for a spring suit, approximately 45 percent were still in boardshorts and maintaining the position that it was fine, and approximately 15 percent had simply given up and were eating burritos in the parking lot, which is arguably the most honest response of all.

More honest seasonal assessments, surf culture observation, and general coastal dispatches: The London Prat.

Also see: Betoota Advocate and NewsThump.

The Sociology of the Parking Lot at Dawn

The Memorial Day dawn patrol parking lot contains a specific cross-section of Southern California surf culture that is worth documenting. There are the regulars — people who are at this parking lot before 6 a.m. approximately 300 days a year, who know each other by name, dog name, and board type. There are the holiday surfers — people who surf regularly but whose schedules allow the beach primarily on long weekends, who arrive with a slightly elevated enthusiasm and slightly diminished local knowledge. There are the genuine tourists — people visiting California who have seen surfing and want to try it, which is a perfectly reasonable impulse. And there are the people in full boardshorts and spring suits who have already entered the water, assessed the temperature, made a rational calculation, and changed, and are not being looked at judgmentally by anyone because everyone else in the parking lot has been in that position at least once.

The boardshort versus wetsuit question is ultimately about what surfing means to the person doing it. For some, it is a sport practiced under whatever conditions are optimal. For others, it is a performance of identity that requires the correct costume regardless of temperature. Both approaches are valid. The ocean doesn’t care, which is, as always, the ocean’s most important quality and its most useful contribution to the philosophical education of everyone who spends time with it.

Seasonal surf suffering humor: Betoota Advocate and NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/