Aloha Dave Devine

Wednesday night I took off, headed south on Hwy. One, to go to the Timber Framers Guild conference at Asilomar in the town of Monterey. I slept in my truck that night (in a residential neighborhood) in Santa Cruz, checked out the dawn patrol surfers at Steamer Lane at sunrise. Pretty good swell, brrrr! — cold. I drove out to Pleasure Point and walked out to the 38th Avenue steps and here was a photo in the morning sunshine, with flowers, of Dave Devine, who died in the first week of April, 2007. Dave was one of the surfers I hung out with in Santa Cruz in the mid-50s. Before there were rubber suits, and boards were balsa. There were maybe 10 surfers living in Santa Cruz in those days, and I’d come over from Stanford every Thursday at noon and stay until Sunday night. Santa Cruz was a sleepy town in the winters and we had the place to ourselves. I remember one foggy morning, the Lane was a glassy 8 feet, and there were just 4 of us out (today there’d be 60). Or the time my roommate George Kovalenko and I were the only ones out on a sunny glassy 6′ day at Pleasure Point and we surfed nude (I mean there was not one other surfer from Outside Pleasure down to the Wild Hook!). Or Chubby Mitchell, 5’6, 285 pounds gracefully walking to the nose one day at the Rivermouth. Rod Lundquist’s $10-a-month cottage on Plateau Ave., with blooming century plant and stacks of surfboards outside and Beethoven symphonies blaring inside. Hey, the good old days really were good! The pic of Dave brought back memories. Here’s Dave’s photo, posted at Dave’s lifetime surfing spot, Inside Pleasure and The Wild Hook. Good on ya Dave!

Dave Devine, 1929-2007