This is a topic near and dear to my heart!<p>Cottons is the break directly in front of Casa Pacifica. It's a long, easy peeling left-hander (meaning: looking at it from the beach, the wave curl moves from left to right as the wave breaks). I've surfed there several times. It's so amusing to imagine President Nixon pacing around in the house atop the cliff with a bunch of dirty hippies riding the waves below.<p>The history of surfing in this area is fascinating and drastically different from today. In 1960, when this story takes place, surfing was deeply counterculture. You could live in a beach shack in Southern California on bum's income — many people did. Although surfing originated in Hawaii, Southern California modernized it. "The Endless Summer" perfectly captures the flavor of this era of surfing and is well worth watching even for non-surfers.<p>Orange County birthed the modern surfboard, constructed with a stiff fiberglass and resin outer shell (the "glass") and foam interior (the "blank"). This construction technique was adapted from methods used by OC's aerospace defense contractors. It's perfect symmetry: the crew-cut engineers working on missiles and fighter jets, trading construction techniques with beatnik hippies trying to find a better waveriding vehicle. Nixon was hilariously in the geographic center of this intersection.<p>In the decades since then, the sport of surfing has moved monotonically upmarket. Today, if you're surfing in the U.S.A, you're wealthy. A lot of white collar desk workers started surfing in 2020, easier to get in the water if you work an email job. It's similar to living in an old warehouse in Tribeca NYC -- in the good old days it was the cheapest lifestyle you could live; today you pay for the privilege.