It’s hit or miss on ‘dawn patrol’

Alex Coolman

It’s a gamble not every surfer is willing to make: you wake up at the

crack of dawn with the hope that the waves will be perfect, clean and

empty.

The “dawn patrol,” as it’s known in surfing circles, is a crapshoot.

Sometimes you score dream waves, sometimes you end up wishing you had

stayed under the covers.

A meaty southerly swell was predicted to hit area beaches on a recent

Thursday morning, but the surfers who got up early to check it out found

something that looked more like a bathtub than the Banzai Pipeline.

Huntington was mushy and small. In Newport Beach, 62nd Street was barely

breaking at all. At 7:15 a.m., there was nobody in the water and a

depressing drizzle was beginning to sprinkle across the sand.

Only down by the jetty at 56th Street was anything happening. About a

dozen surfers bobbed and paddled, jockeying for position for 4-foot

breakers that occasionally threw into clean tubes.

But even if a rider caught a good one, an observer on the beach couldn’t

help wondering: could it possibly be worth waking up so early to surf

these waves?

For the people in the water, the answer was yes.

“I’m a portfolio manager for an investment firm in Newport Beach, so I

have to surf early,” said Irvine resident Scott Monroe, as he walked in

out of the water.

Despite the early rising required for his session, Monroe said he

wouldn’t trade them for an evening dip in the sea.

“Mornings are best for me,” he said. “It wakes me up. It’s like my

coffee. It sets the tone for the whole day.”

How early is early? Huntington Beach resident John Moody, who was out at

56th Street on Thursday morning, said he’s been known to wake up at 3:30

a.m. -- all for the sake of surfing.

But that kind of insanity was reserved for a trip to Baja; on a

day-to-day basis, he restricts himself to the minor madness of a 5 a.m.

reveille. The schedule gives Moody time for a little shredding before he

cruises off to his job as a sales manager in Irvine.

Of course, so much early-morning exertion can take its toll as the day

wears on. The adults were a little reluctant to admit it, but Edison High

student Jacob Richardson, who was bodyboarding at 56th Street, confessed

to feeling the desire for an occasional post-surf snooze.

“It wakes me up,” said Richardson, who rises almost daily at 5:45 or 6

a.m. to surf. “But sometimes during third period, I get kind of tired.”

And then there’s the biggest risk the dawn patroller must face: the

possibility that the waves will get better later in the day.

That’s what happened on that recent Thursday. Monroe, Moody, Richardson

and the rest of the hard-core crowd eventually scampered off to school

and work.

Only then, when nobody was around to notice, did the sun come out. And

the surf, having thoroughly fooled the gamblers, finally revealed its

best cards.