Back in the early 90s, I experienced the very same congestion at Church's that we are experiencing today in the Pleasure Point area. Of course, being a SoCal "Tranny" myself, I must remain a casual observer on this subject without getting too worked up about it. My temporary status makes me only slightly less hated than UCSC alumni.

Traditionally, Church's had been an overlooked break. I even recall a day when me and a young Mike Parsons - we called him "Snips" back then - traded off on lonely peaks in front of the wooden lifeguard tower.

In the 80s, Church's had maintained limited isolation for three very good reasons: (1) Surfers accessing the beach via the Christianitos bicycle path would never go to all that trouble to hike in and then walk right past Lower's. You'd have to be crazy. (2) Direct access was restricted by the campground at Pendleton. Marines have always hated surfers, and while rumors abounded of confiscated boards and land mines buried just under the sand, they never gave us any trouble as long as we stayed below the high tide line. (3) Longboards were just too heavy. San Onofre was just far enough and never crowded enough to make someone want to walk all that way against a head wind with a twenty pound board.

Yes, we were all pretty happy at Church's prior to the Fletcher/Paskowitz revolution of the early 90s, but soon guys began trading in their 6'0"s for 9'0"s. They wanted to be "soul" surfers like Curren one month and "hardcore" and tattooed like Archibald the next.

Crowds at San Onofre began to swell and achieve overflow parking status on every consecutive weekend. Gone were the days of an empty wave.

Who was to blame? All of them! PT, ESPN, Budweiser, Body Glove, Rusty, Oakley, Quiksilver, AstroDek, Surfer Magazine, Surfing Magazine, LB Magazine (of which I still own the first issue, spine never broken; A gift from Guy Motil). Even me, I suppose.

The Dana Point Mafia of Alter, Edwards, and Munoz was replaced by the San Clemente Mafia; And Andino, Beschen and Christian were the generals.

A few tried to fight the media blitz, but they were quickly forgotten. Or, admitting defeat left the country without much struggle: Parmenter, Curren, Dora (actually he gave up in the 70s).

Brad Gerlach took us to a new low with televised displays of nude surfing and Peter King even had his own game show on MTV.

In the late 90s, the focus turned to those aspects of surfing that could be obtained by throwing lots and lots of money at any challenge to be overcome. Boats, personal water craft, tow ropes, online surf reports, surf forecasting, and even a Maverick's e-mail distribution list for God's sake! Digital Cable made "North Shore" and "Point Break" viewable at any moment of the day or night. Eddie Vedder even claimed to surf. And no one cared that Perry Ferrel really did.

Today, no distant reef is out of reach, and no one is humble enough to think that maybe there's still a wave out there that will remain unchallenged.

- Ryen Phillips