SURF COUNTY, USA : THE LONG RIDERS : Some change from business suits into wet suits. Others practically live in the water. All find exceptional challenges and rewards in their search for the perfect wave.

CHRIS EVANS

DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, 35

The aging twin-engine Convair went into a sharp dive, and Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Chris Evans felt his stomach climb into his throat. A few minutes later the passengers were clapping. They had landed safely on the small airstrip of Isla Natividad.

There isn’t much on the dun-colored island except some of the finest surf in Baja California. That was all Evans and his friends needed. Never mind the Spartan accommodations.

Evans, 35, who has prosecuted some of the county’s heaviest organized crime figures, is an avid surfer, the kind with a yen every now and then for waves south of the border.

“I still like surfing for the same reason I started. It’s exhilarating,” Evans said. “And, it’s got every element of a spare-time sport you could want”--low cost, thrills and a little adventure.

Evans, an Anaheim resident, started surfing when he was a 21-year-old county firefighter. He has been to Hawaii and popular breaks in Baja California, including San Miguel and K-38. But his favorite is Isla Natividad.

“It’s great,” Evans recalled. “The biggest danger is the flight down . . . The pilot was 50 or so and the co-pilot was 19. They smoked cigarettes in the cabin. It was unreal, but worth the trip.”

Evans is prosecuting Dr. Thomas Gionis, charged with plotting an attack on his former wife, Aissa Wayne, who is John Wayne’s daughter, and her boyfriend, Roger Luby, at Luby’s Newport Beach home.

He is also handling a case against Robert Paduano, a reputed organized crime figure who allegedly tried to take over part of the county’s cocaine trade.

“Nothing can stop me from surfing,” Evans said. “No case, not even the Gionis case, can keep me from it. It is not even a close call.”