Daily Reports Aid Search for Perfect Wave : ‘Surfin’ Safari’ Now Being Conducted by Phone

Thousands of Southern California surfers have been victims for decades of often-vain treks up and down Pacific Coast Highway on the prowl for rideable waves.

Perched on car fenders, they peer from coastal bluffs and parking lots across the sun-roasted sands for signs of a swell and the elusive pristine wave.

But the hunt, glamorized in the Beach Boys tune “Surfin’ Safari,” is now over. The unreliable word-of-mouth and disheartening phrase, “You shudda been here yesterday,” has ended for an estimated quarter of a million surfers.

For 55 cents, reliable surf reports from Ventura’s California Street to Malibu and south to Orange County can be obtained by dialing 976-SURF.

The money is well spent considering the wasted gas and time spent on wild goose surf chases. Reports of “corduroy on the horizon” have gone high-tech.

Jerry Arnold, a 36-year-old veteran Corona del Mar surfer, and David Wilk, a 35-year-old San Clemente surfer, are the brains behind Surfline, the first attempt to link modern high technology with the age-old act of checking the waves.

90-Second Reports

Using the telephone company’s newly approved 976 information lines, Wilk transmits 90-second reports given by a web of operatives reporting on 22 major surf spots in Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The caller hears Wilk giving the “dawn patrol” report at 6 a.m., complete with a Ventures-type guitar tune in the background, detailing wind direction and strength, water temperature, the day’s tides and wave height and shape. There is a 2:30 p.m. afternoon update, followed by a 72-hour forecast at 6 p.m.

“We knew the frustration of calling the county lifeguard and getting a busy signal, or, if you got through, inaccurate, limited and poor reports,” Wilk said. “Then this new technology became available.”

The 976-SURF number can handle 1,000 calls per hour. Since Surfline’s inception this month, about 900 surfers per day have called the beach condition report. Wilk and Arnold get 31 cents per call.

The instant success already has them talking about expanding their reporting area to Santa Barbara and San Diego counties.

“We will start covering Rincon soon, and we are opening up further Orange reports and into San Diego County in mid-May,” Wilk said.

Surfing Reporters

The network of Surfline reporters, ranging in age from 15 to 22, are all affiliated with the National Scholastic Surfing Assn., who call in by 5:45 a.m. each day.

“Most are college kids,” Wilk said. “They are very talented surfers. They earn from $250 to $750 a month for their reports.”

Wilk boasts of Surfline’s successes.

“We’ve predicted three straight New Zealanders using satellite pictures and we were successful,” Wilk said. A south swell generated in New Zealand brings heavy surf to Southern California.

Wilk notes that the background guitar riff on the Surfline report is not a tune by the Ventures, a popular 1960s surf band.

“We had to consider royalties and all that stuff,” he said. “What we play is a surfy piece we had made up by Steve Zuckerman, a songwriter friend who lives in the San Fernando Valley.”