The Associated Press
Surfers in full wetsuits head for the waves on a typical Northwest winter day in Westport on Feb. 17. Surfers wear the thick wetsuits for protection against 40-degree water and icy surface winds.

Portland resident Leigh Ann Penuel, 26, leaves the beach after hitting the waves Feb. 17.

Westport beckons hardy surfers

Despite frigid waters, Washington coast is a big draw for daring

LUIS CABRERA, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Sunday, March 3, 2002

WESTPORT -- Surfing the frigid wintertime waters off Washington's coast isn't so tough, Brad Yaeger insists.

In fact, once he's zipped inside a maximum-thickness, hooded wetsuit, paddling out and beginning to ride the waves, he barely notices the 40-degree water and icy surface winds.

But then he remembers the ice cream headaches.

"You dive under a wave, and your head just goes yeewww," he said, bringing his hands together and squeezing. "It just whistles. It's like you just ate a bunch of ice cream. It's really, really cold."

Yaeger is one of the hardy dozens who each winter weekend strap their boards to the tops of battered vans, station wagons and SUVs and drive 100 miles and more to Westport, a coastal fishing town that's become a Mecca for coldwater surfing.

Growing fast

"It's growing fast," said Rob Brown, a local surfboard maker and coffee-shop owner who in February staged Westport's First Annual Clean Water Classic, a competition that attracted male and female surfers from southern Oregon to British Columbia.

"What it is," he said, "is all the snowboarders and skaters from Seattle and Vancouver, Canada are crossing over to the mother of all those sports."

Brown's contest, staged the weekend of Feb. 16-17, captured the essence of the Northwest surfing scene.

Parkas, ponchos and thick knit caps were the gear of choice for the 50 or so spectators who clambered up piles of treacherous, slime-covered boulders and shivered for hours in drizzle broken occasionally by milky sunshine.

"This is a sunny day for us. But the waves are best in winter, when it's like this," said Mike McCann, 27, a Seattle schoolteacher and avid Westport surfer who drove down to watch.

"There was just a handful of people when I came up here 20 years ago, and it seemed like heaven to me coming from a crowded surf spot like Santa Cruz, Calif.," said LeBaron Esty, 49, manager of The Surf Shop in Westport.

"You had beautiful waves, beautiful people. There was a real pioneer spirit of surfing where everybody helped each other and everybody was excited to see each other," he said. "It grew exponentially over the years."

Hundreds on weekends

In recent years, the few dozen surfers who might be seen testing the waves in February have become a few hundred on summertime weekends, Esty said.

Of course, they still have to wear wetsuits.

"In California, they're just into fashion, where the surfers in the Northwest are more practical," surfboard maker Brown said. "It's a bit of the Northwest grunge. They don't care what they look like. They just want the best equipment they can get -- and the best wetsuit. You definitely have to have a good wetsuit."

"People up here are surfing for surfing's sake, as opposed to scamming the chick on the beach sake," said Frank Crippen, owner of the NxNW Surf Co. in Port Angeles.

In that area, the best surfing spots are a tightly guarded secret, as many of them are on private land or in remote, relatively fragile areas.

In Westport, the three best surfing spots are within a couple of miles of town. Far from being secret, they've become a local industry.

"It's done the town really good in many ways," said Lebaron Esty's ex-wife, Debby Esty, who was perched on a boulder, watching her son, LeBaron III, compete.

"The fishing industry has always been the main provider in this area, and it still is, but it's dying to a point. This brings a different type of person in, the surfers with young families."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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