CLIQUES

The Crips and Bloods may rule the streets, but the Lunada Bay Pirates rule the waves. Ask any surfer from San Diego to Santa Cruz if he or she would dare trespass on the gang’s turf and the answer is a resounding “No way, dude!” One Huntington Beach surf rider who attempted to run the Pirate gantlet on a dare remembers never “even making the trail head. Halfway there, they hosed me down with bad vibes and I split.”

Bad vibes? The fact is, other than letting air out of a foreigner’s tires or the occasional rock- or fist-throwing incident, the Lunada Bay Pirates rarely resort to violence to defend their turf. Lunada Bay, barely a third of a mile wide, lies beneath two cliffs in Palos Verdes Estates. “The north point has one of the best point breaks in Southern California,” says one Pirate (who declined to give his name because of Pirate policy against talking to the press). “From December to March, we get these northwest winds that make a huge swell, sometimes 20 feet. And because that swell is whipping around the point, the ride sometimes lasts for a couple hundred yards. That’s why they all want to surf Lunada Bay.”

There are more than 150 Palos Verdes surfers from 18 to 42 allowed to surf the bay, and it is nearly impossible for outsiders to slip in unnoticed. An established pecking order limits the number of Pirates out on the point to less than two dozen. PV surfers recognize each other by their board makers, wet suit colors (basic black) and cars. Whenever the surf is good, a half-dozen Pirates guard the trail entrance at the top of the cliffs.

“There are just too many surfers for too few waves in California,” says one Pirate. “If we stood back, this place would be overrun. We keep it clean, pick up all the trash and make sure the neighborhood stays safe. We even pick up the neighbors’ papers and put them on their porches. Can you name another gang that does that?”