Surfing Museum Opens to Tide of Blessings, Twanging Guitars

While the politicians and business leaders gave speeches and smiled for publicity photos outside, David Nuuhiwa strolled into the new International Surfing Museum, alone, mumbling prayers while sprinkling seawater on the museum’s walls, walkways and memorabilia.

Seemingly oblivious to the block party kicking up to christen the museum’s new downtown location Saturday, Nuuhiwa, clad in white clothing and draped with an exotic lei of orange Hawaiian flowers, was enacting a traditional island ceremony of blessing, bestowing love, unity and friendship upon the building.

He emerged after a few minutes, flicking a few final drops onto the museum’s threshold and the ritual was complete.

Moments later, dozens of invited guests crowded into a line to get their first glimpse of the museum’s new home.

For at least the next two years, the 2,200-square-foot building on Olive Street will serve as Surf City’s tribute to the history of the sport until a permanent location is built at the foot of a new Municipal Pier being planned to replace the city’s aging landmark.

Polynesian dancers, singers, guitarist Dick Dale, old-time surfers, city and business leaders and more than 100 guests gathered for an opening celebration that blended Hawaiian culture, pomp and rock ‘n’ roll.

Following the singers’ renditions of traditional, Hawaiian-language songs, a Polynesian feast of roast pig and a presentation on surfing heritage by the editor of Surfer magazine, Dale and his Deltones performed a concert on a stage erected between Main and 5th streets.

Among those on hand for the ceremony were Dorian (Doc) Paskowitz, one of the pioneer surfers in Orange County, and Faye Baird Fraser, 81, believed to be America’s first female surfer.

Fraser, who surfed on 100-pound wooden boards at San Diego’s Mission Beach during the 1920s, said she still follows the surfing scene and marvels at today’s surfers. She noted that she often wanted to take up the sport again, but said, “I could never ride any of those new boards.”

The day’s festivities got under way Saturday morning on the beach two blocks away, with volleyball and long-board surfing contests, and a showing of about 75 “woodie”-style station wagons in the parking lot north of the pier.

Open to the public for the first time today between noon and 4 p.m., the new museum provides a condensed look back at the origin of the surf board, surf guitar rock and surfing legends--most notably Duke Kahanamoku, an Olympic swimmer-turned-actor renowned as “America’s father of surfing,” and the man to whom the museum is dedicated.

At the museum’s entrance, visitors were greeted by a brass bust of Kahanamoku, who died in 1968 at the age of 78, adorned with a lei and an assortment of other flowers.

Along the walls, pictures of Kahanamoku and other notable surfers are exhibited between displays representing seven stages of the surf board’s development. The artifacts include a 39-inch-long Hawaiian Pipo board, built just before the turn of the century, a series of 8-, 10- and 12-foot wooden boards from the 1920s through the 1950s, and a bright red, circa-1966 fiberglass board.

Dick Dale’s guitar adorns another wall, surrounded by his album covers and those of such other surf rockers as the Beach Boys, the Challengers, the Surfaris and the Fantastic Baggys.

Lee Williams, the museum’s curator, said the limited size of the new building allows him to display only a smattering of the available artifacts chronicling surfing history, which he has been collecting for 10 years.

“Because we’re so small here, we’ve just picked the most important pieces to put out,” he said. “And we’ve arbitrarily cut (the displays) off at the mid-’60s.”

He envisions the permanent museum, scheduled to open in 1992 along with the new pier, as encompassing somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 square feet. It is planned to include a surfing Hall of Fame, a “3-D surf theater” that would enable visitors to experience the sensation of shooting a curl and a full display of surfing memorabilia, he said.

The $90,000 cost of remodeling the museum’s existing home was financed through city redevelopment funds and private donations, Williams said. The museum’s directors will spend the next two years trying to secure grants and additional donations to pay for the future facility, which he estimates will cost more than $5 million.

Paskowitz, revered by many surfers as Orange County’s godfather of the sport, said he believes other cities may have had a legitimate claim to the International Surfing Museum, but Huntington Beach is its rightful home.

“There are places that have a more authentic history or more credibility for pioneering,” said Paskowitz, who has been surfing for nearly six decades. “But Huntington Beach has always been a kind of focal point for surfing, where new things were always being done. There was always a certain ferment and hell-raising attitude here, where you saw all kinds of off-the-wall maneuvering.

“Huntington Beach opened its heart to surfing. Of course, the surfers eventually stole it. But that’s why the museum is here, and that’s why Duke Kahanamoku’s statue is here.”