"In Trim: Mike Hynson," written by Scott Hulet, ran in the Winter 1993 issue of Longboard magazine. Hynson was 51 years old.


I was born in Crescent City, California, in 1942. My family moved to Hawaii when I was little, but we moved back and forth across the Pacific every few years. When I was a kid I was a phenomenal golfer. Still am. I played on little tours and had sponsors, the whole nine yards. I was coached to be a professional. To cultivate a certain look and attitude. To be cool. I later brought some of that to my surfing. In fact, I gave up golf to be a surfer.


I went to Mission Bay High, in San Diego. The school team name was the Buccaneers, so that’s where I came from. You know, a guy with a knife in his teeth. A pirate. A smuggler. In a way, that’s what I grew up to be. I'm the victim of a school name. Those were wild days. Among surfers, San Diego had a reputation for producing badasses. Pat Curren, Tiny Brain, Butch van Artsdalen, all the La Jolla guys. When I was in 9th grade, Pacific Beach was filled with Navy housing. Across the street from my school was Brown Military Academy, and gang fights would break out between the Brown boys and an old P.B. surf club called the Sultans.


I used to walk along the boardwalk on the bayside of Mission Beach, and I noticed a beat-up balsa board in this old man’s back yard. I tried to figure out ways to steal it. Then the old man caught me looking at it this one time, and asked if I’d like to have it. That was it, baby!


I started hanging out with Billy Caster and Skip Frye, surfing La Jolla and Bird Rock and Pacific Beach. I was surfing up the coast a bit, too. Swami’s, mostly. I’d surf there day in and day out, but the Swami’s Surf Club would never nominate me. I wasn’t clean-cut enough. I had a Mexican girlfriend, I drove kind of a low-rider, and I smoked some grass. Meanwhile, the Windansea thing started rolling, and the Mac Meda Destruction Company was starting to rumble. The Windansea crew had this wild reputation. They were the heaviest street-fighters, the hardest drinkers, had the wildest chicks. There were guys whose entire wardrobes were S.S. uniforms. I decided to start a surf club at Windansea, since the Swami’s crew wouldn’t have any of us. Chuck Hasley and I got together with Thor Svenson and built the Windansea Surf Club from the ground up. We owned La Jolla.


We had some crazy bastards, man. We were the shock troops. We’d load up an entire bus and go up to Malibu, and the Malibu crew would be going “Jeez, what are these guys up to?” We’d throw parties that’d take up the whole beach, from Palomar Street to Westbourne. Every now and then, bikers would show up and try and claim some turf. We worked 'em, boy. I remember this guy Macpherson, a really good surfer. He always had a gun, and one day he pulled up in front of us at the beach, jumped out of his car, and just emptied the thing into the side of his Buick. I don't know why.

One time we were having a little party on the beach, and we could hear this rumbling coming down Bonair Street. Twenty bikers pulled into the lot and just stood there, staring at us. Tiny-Brain (Kenny Easton) ran up the hill, walked right up to the biggest one, and just buried his teeth into the seat of the guy’s cherry Harley. He came up with a big mouthful of stuffing and just started swinging. That was Windansea.


Bruce had been planning this thing for a while. I'd been in some of his earlier movies, and hell, I lived with him. We understood each other. I knew how Bruce's brain worked. Me and Robert August, on the other hand, were polar opposites, but we got along fine. He’d been class president, and I’d been . . . well, let's talk about that some other time.

Anyway, we hit Tahiti and, Jesus, it’s everything it's cracked up to be. I’m riding around the island on my bicycle, I look down the beach to this little gazebo thing on a rock, and I see this vision. She’s combing her hair, and she runs out to me and kisses me on both cheeks and invites me in. I woke up the next morning in her place, and it’s completely empty. I hopped on my bike, and haul ass back to the guys to tell them what happened. I don’t think they believed me, but it was one of the two or three heaviest experiences of my life. When you’re in a place like that, you don’t just sit around in a room. You get out into it. Australia was the same way. If you go there and don’t get naked, big-time, you're blowing it. Besides, there sure as hell wasn’t any surf.


We finally got to this huge point, and pulled into a little village, and got ourselves a couple of little clay and straw huts called rondavels. We’d been driving for three straight days, and I'm the 72-hour man, baby. I had a little tube of Benzedrine, and my little bag of grass. I was prepared. Purely medicinal, all right? I didn’t want to sleep. I was in Africa, man!

I woke up before sunrise and walked down to the beach by myself. Robert had diarrhea. I was looking way up the point and saw these unreal waves coming through. I watched and watched until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then I started screaming and woke everybody up. They were tired, didn't want to be hassled, but I knew this was it! Finally, Bruce and Robert stumbled out of their huts, and I pointed up the point, but they weren’t into it! It was too far away, they said. So they started setting up the cameras there in the bay, to film these crappy little waves! I was fuming! I was yelling at Bruce, "Goddamit, get those cameras up to that point! Look at those waves!" But Bruce made Robert paddle out at this shitty little shorebreak left, and started filming. Meanwhile, I'm looking at most perfect waves I’d ever seen! They were looking up there too, but all they saw was the long stretch of beach. They didn’t know what they were looking at, man! So I starting walking up the point, alone. About halfway up the beach, everything just went WHOOOOSH!!! And a big voice said "Michael, do you want an experience? Do you want to see God?" It was same the feeling I used to get when I'd anticipate a hole-in-one. Walking up that point at Cape St. Francis, it was just like when you hit the ball 200 yards into the wind, and you turn your back and don’t even have to watch it, cause you just know it’s going in the cup.

I paddled out by myself, and it was Heaven on earth. Just golden. My paddling was absolutely perfect. Total economy. My fingers dipped in just deep enough to shoot me forward. I watched these waves going down the point, and I thought to myself, “less movement, more perfect.” So I took off on that first wave and stood absolutely still. It's hard to fathom unless you've experienced waves like that. And I rode that way for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, down in the bay, I could just make out Bruce and Robert jumping up and down, freaking out. They finally realized what I was doing! And I see them pack up their gear and run up the beach with all their crap. August is so blown away, he’s running as fast as he can, baby. He dragged his board all the way! He paddled out like he was in a race, man, and immediately got into it. Bruce got his shit together on the beach, pulled a blanket over his head, and started filming. We knew that there was only an hour before the tide was gonna wax it. Bruce did not move from under that blanket for 90 minutes! He never took his finger off the button! He’d rip one film cartridge of the camera, and pop in another, just BOOM! And that was it, baby. We all knew what had happened, that we’d just made the movie.

Mike Hynson (1993)

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