Pro Surfer Whose Arrest Made Waves Is Still ‘Mad-Dogging’ It

Winter is setting in and despite the stubbornly warm days, the water is growing colder and choppier by the week.

But these conditions do not bother Todd Bonnet, a “mad-dogging” professional surfer who waxes his surfboard at least twice daily and paddles out to his “home break” off Brookhurst Avenue for a few hours of practice.

“I’m surfing better every day, and doing stuff where I get really stoked,” he said recently as he sat in the living room of his Huntington Beach home, drying his hair, bleached almost white by salt and sun. “I don’t really care if it’s getting colder. I just wear a wet suit.”

Bonnet has had that devil-may-care attitude about surfing conditions for a long time. In fact, it was that same mind set in February that put him onto the front page of the Los Angeles Times and into the holding tank of the Huntington Beach city jail.

Although the 22-year-old Bonnet has surfed professionally for several years, traveling around the country and catching the best contests and best waves, most know him simply as the only guy arrested during the Feb. 7 oil spill that closed the coastline to all swimmers and surfers from Newport Beach to Seal Beach.

The photograph of Bonnet, standing on the beach with his handcuffed wrists twisted behind his back, was displayed on cash registers and walls of local surf shops and turned him into a local cult hero.

After his arrest for interfering with the duties of a lifeguard during an emergency, he spent more than four hours in jail, wearing only his trunks and oily wet suit. The charges were later dropped.

He contended at the time that the waves were just too good to pass up. He also said that it would take more than an oil slick to keep him out of the water.

“Maybe some nuclear waste, I don’t know,” he said.

Bonnet still lives by that credo.

It was not stubbornness, rebellion or stupidity that drove the surfer into the water, he said. Rather, it was a firm commitment to breaking into the ranks of the top 32 surfers of the country--something that takes practice, practice, practice.

“You gotta go out there whenever you have a chance,” Bonnet said. “That’s why I don’t work. I practice every day on my moves. If you want to win, you gotta be out there every day.”

Kahuna, the surfers’ god of good luck, has not exactly been kind to Bonnet during his pro career. He has often placed in the final heats--including a decent showing in the Dive N’ Surf event at Salt Creek Beach in South County in August. But he has yet to win a major contest since turning pro.

“It’s what I usually do,” Bonnet said. “I get up to the money and then I blow it.”

Bonnet, however, has successfully garnered several well-known sponsors who contract with him to wear their trendy surf clothes and try out their latest neon-colored surf boards. The sponsorships have also enabled him to travel to Florida and Hawaii since his arrest.

Bonnet said he can’t precisely recall the first wave he rode when he was 10 years old, but said he was bitten hard by the surf bug right away.

His goal now is partly monetary. If he does become one of the top surfers in the country, cash prizes can run in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Bonnet said that now he has to overcome his biggest enemy--lack of confidence.

When he reaches the final heats, he says, he becomes overly cautious and is outmaneuvered by “hot-doggers” who are more daring and score more points by executing gravity-defying cutbacks, aerials and 360-degree turns.

“You can’t win today if you are not radical with the waves,” Bonnet admitted. “I am learning every day, and I hope that this is going to be my year.”