Swell Memories by Dermot continues with Piers! An introspective look at the man made structures that shape our waves and our lives. -Ed.
Swell Memories by Dermot Main Index
"We never know the worth of water till the well is dry." ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
PIERS by Dermot
The wooden planks, each one cracked and bleached from the daily onslaught of the Florida sun, groaned like an old stairway as I made my way out along the length of the pier. Upon reaching the end, I turned and looked back along its length and realized I was looking back at a dozen or so mirror images of me. Even though the strangers may have mirrored me in many ways, it was comforting to know there was at least one certain commonality in the crowd…the pier itself.
For whatever reason - right now I can’t recall - I found myself at the end of the St. Augustine pier on a clear afternoon late in the spring. Scattered along were fishermen who, except for our separate passions, were doing the same thing I was. We were all gazing downward or seaward, deep in our own thoughts, perhaps contemplating where we’ve been and where we’re headed. We were all hoping for something…now or in the future. The fishermen were hoping to catch something bigger than small croakers…I was hoping for an increase in swell size.
I turned from my observation of the fishermen, leaned against the scaly rail, and focused my sights south. I surmised Flagler pier was the next one south. However, to my amazement, I couldn’t remember what pier was next along Florida’s coast. In fact, I wondered how many piers were still standing along our beautiful coast - piers that provided a source of enjoyment for fishermen and surfers alike. I tried to remember back to the 60’s and all the piers from South Beach north to St. Augustine. Sadly, I realized very few of them still existed. Good or bad, friendly or unfriendly, piers have been an integral part of surfing history.
Either by chance or design, surfers at some time or another have found themselves staring up at the creaky underside of an old pier. How many times have we paddled along side a wooden pier glancing briefly at each piling as we stroked our way out? Each piling is a city…a wooden condominium…whose inhabitant’s are tiny crustaceans that depend on the ebb and flow of the ocean for life’s nutrients.As we paddled out next to these piers, how many times have we looked up because we were the object of some vitriolic comment spewing forth from an irate fisherman? There are times I’d swear I was at a carnival and some guy was barking out through a megaphone…. “Hit the surfer and win a stuffed animal, three tries for a dollar.”
Regardless of the territorial battles between fisherman and surfers, rarely did I see true conflicts. Despite the differences, I believe fishermen and surfers shared the enjoyment and security that a pier brought to them. The pier shaped the waves and brought the fish. For both surfers and fishermen, it was the pier that brought them together. The pier was a focal point that brought enjoyment to both.
No matter where I have spent my winters, not one has gone by where I don't remember throwing my first surfboard off the end of the South Beach pier. To this day, I can recall watching my 9’4” Surfboard House spin like a top after I threw it off the end of that stubby pier. The board hovered in the wind - spinning rail over rail, for what seemed like an eternity, before it hit the aqua blue surf. I was just another 12-year-old gremmy trying to avoid paddling against the strong currents generated by the rare South Florida winter swell.
In my most recent past, especially as the summer seasons have rocketed by, I recall paddling out next to the Emerald Isle Pier in North Carolina during the great summer swell season of '95. A consistent 6’- 8', dead calm glass, no one out - what a great day that was... just the pier and me. Sadly, that pier is now gone…but the memory isn’t.
Whether it's been winters or summers, I often recall my life's challenges and changes by which pier I surfed next to or walked on. Just as our friends and families succumb to mortality - so do piers. Like humans, piers stumble, crack, and collapse with old age and the fury of Mother Nature. As do our elderly, piers also have their own stories to tell.
The South Beach pier could have told you about the pre Art Deco days before all the models and the hype. Stories of the old Dog Track and the birth of South Florida surfing would emanate from that short but sturdy structure.
South Beach Memories from the '60s. Photo: Gump152
Further up the coast and I couldn’t even begin to count how many 2’-3’ summer swells I caught next to the old Patrick Pier. I think it’s safe to say the same feet that walked on the moon walked on those old creaky planks that made up Patrick Pier. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of our early astronauts, arm-in-arm with his wife, walked out to the end of the Patrick Pier on a clear night, stars everywhere, gazed up at the moon, and thought…soon, real soon. I used to paddle underneath that pier from the north to the south side always leery of the coral head that created a boil on the southern side. Patrick Pier was a true gem, but there were others.
Ormond-by-the-Sea, Emerald Isle, Haulover, Surf City, Topsail and countless other piers from the Carolinas to South Florida whose names I can't remember could tell us magnificent stories about great surf, pristine coastlines, terrific surfers or unique experiences.
One of my favorite pier memories occurred over 30 years ago. Around dawn, in the early part July 1970, I was on the southern side of the Ormond-by-the-Sea pier. It was a typical north Florida summer morning - sultry and listless. Everything sagged, the air, the trees, and your every movement, even the small waves just seemed to flop over…glad to have spent their energy in the oppressive heat. In fact it was so hot my 99-cent flip-flops could only flop.
The water was oil-slick glass…a blue-gray mirror. However, it was the smell, or smells, that made that morning unique. My sense of smell was working overtime. The deceptively clear air hid an olfactory fog! The pier with all of its odors, stood out. This old pier, sagging in the heat and dripping wet from the humidity was the unofficial demarcation line that divided the brown coarse sand of Flagler Beach to the north from the white, fine, powdery sand of Daytona Beach to the south. The pier seemed to function as a filter, capturing all the smells that were in the area.
The smell of fish, creosote from the pilings, salt, morning meals being cooked from local residences, and even the faint smell of wood pulp emanated around that old pier. The water was alive with baitfish and smelled as such. Perched atop this aged structure on this languid Florida morning was a lone fisherman. We made eye contact as I glanced up and he waived. In that he and I were the only ones pursuing our passions that morning, and the fact that he waived, I hollered up and asked him what he was fishing for.
Mistake.
With fingers joined, he formed a ninety-degree angle with his upper and lower arm and slowly moved his palm and lower arm in an S-type movement. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what that hand and arm movement meant, a shark. I couldn’t let him see that it unnerved me so I nonchalantly asked him what he was using for bait. He hollered down and said, “cut mullet, plus” then he quietly pointed…to me. I stayed out in that sensory filled environment for about three hours. I caught fun 2’-3’ lefthanders; the fisherman, luckily, went home empty handed.
These old piers were alive with character, structures that when you paddled out next to you could smell the creosote on the pilings, or count the leaders that were previously owned by some 7 year old and now permanently attached to the pier. As you paddled out you would marvel as the barnacles, clinging to the lower parts of the pier, searched for morsels of food each time a wave washed over them. These old wooden structures that have dotted the eastern seaboard for years are as much a part of East Coast surfing history as any surfer might be.
The pier in Cocoa Beach has seen more than its fair share of surf legends. If that old pier could talk it would tell us how Gary Propper rode the nose, or how Mike Tabeling carved those big turns - fast forward and the pier would tell us about the early days of Kelly Slater. No…piers weren’t just monoliths that jutted out into the ocean… they were a source of surf history and culture.
Canaveral Pier in the 1960's, Pre-Condo.
Remember in the film Big Wednesday, near the end, when the now broke and destitute surf shop owner says, "They're tearing down the pier Jack."
For those not accustomed to life in and around piers, that statement might not have any meaning. However, for surfers the demolition of a pier means the elimination of memories. Piers have always provided surfers with all kinds of memories. You would surf all day and go to the pier in the evening with you buddies. You'd sit on the rail and relive the day’s events. You’d laugh until tears flowed while a buddy, in a most comical manner, described a friend's attempt to shoot the pier. His description, accompanied by wild gyrations, always resulted in horrific wipeouts and countless numbers of dings to the new noserider. No one ever hit the pier with an old surfboard - invariably it was always a brand new noserider!
How many times have we walked on a pier on a moonlight night making all kinds of promises to a young lady? How many promises have been made only to be broken as a new swell causes the pier to creek and groan. Promises never kept because a swell would shimmer under a full moon. Promises never kept because from high on your wooden perch you’d see the offshore breeze feather the whitewater back into the darkness. A promise never kept because the next morning you’d be in the water, hand dragging the face of a 5’ winter swell as fellow surfers hoot from the lofty vantage point of the pier.
Whether you’ve been surfing for 4 months, 4 years, or 40 years, eventually you will find yourself surfing near a pier. As the pier shapes the waves…let the experience shape your memory. I only hope, as the years go by, I continue to overhear surfers say, “Lets go to the pier, it should be good there!”
~Dermot
