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SURFERMAG ONLINE EXCLUSIVE

The Dirt:
The town of Malibu is kept small by the lack of a sewage system but all those leeching septic systems run straight to Malibu Creek, which runs straight into the ocean which makes the ocean along the point at Malibu one of the most consistently polluted stretches of beach in all of California.

Malibu surfers regularly get sick from surfing at Malibu. Glowing sore throats are common and it is thought that in the 90s, a visiting surfer from Huntington Beach contracted a heart muscle virus from Malibu and died of myocarditis.

Misconceptions:
When outsiders think of Malibu they think of swimming pools and movie stars, wealth and glitz. Some of that is true, but for the most part, Malibu has done a very good job of maintaining its low-profile, small-town flavor while sitting within 20 miles of the huddled millions of the Los Angeles basin. Malibu is perhaps the best preserved coastal town in all of southern California. Some of that has to do with the extremely high cost of land and housing – what one surfer calls “economic cleansing” – but mostly it has to do with Malibu’s lack of a sewage system. All homes and businesses in Malibu are on septic systems, which limits the number of homes and businesses that can be built, and keeps Malibu a small town.

Nostradamus:
As much or more than any surf spot in California or the world, Malibu has been victimized by the 21st Century. Now that surf predictors can forecast a swell just after the leopard seal farts in Antarctica – and with at least two video cameras teletransporting crowds directly into the lineup – surfing Malibu is a metaphor for life in general in Los Angeles County: Crowded, tense, frustrating.

The population of Los Angeles County increases by 100,000 a people a year, which does not bode well for the crowds at Malibu. On crowded weekends, the place is a feeding frenzy of surfers of every stripe scratching for any energy they can get.

Surfing etiquette is almost non-existent as surfers who have been surfing for a couple of hours drop in on surfers who have been surfing the place for 30 years.

Malibu has set the pace for the surfing world in other ways: shorter boards, style, hot dogging. But if Malibu is the shape of things to come for the rest of the surfing world, then the rest of the surfing world is about to have problems.

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