In the 1930s, the now-glamorous area of Ocean Drive provided the impetus for surfing’s evolution, with Windex-colored water, pastel-painted buildings, and bronze bodies.
According to John Hughes, executive director of the Florida Surf Museum on Cocoa Beach and host of “Surfing Miami: A Definitive Look at Surfing on Miami Beach,” it is a very important part of Florida surfing history.
On Dec. 11, the “Surfing Miami” exhibit will open and remain on display until March 20, 2022.
South Florida surfer Paul Aho, with help from his buddy, Ron Faulds, and Florida Atlantic University murals, contributed much of the exhibit at the Florida Surf Museum.
There are stories from The Miami Herald about how a rival surf shop allegedly destroyed a competitor’s building with fire; one University of Miami student practically invented baggies, only to see his factory fold as a surge in Hang Ten clothing occurred; and how looting and a decay of morals shut down other businesses.
In fact, surfing in South Florida – first documented in the 1920s by the legendary Whitman brothers – played a pivotal role in the progression of the sport.
As a child, Bill Whiddon, 67, surfed where the Miami Beach Pier loomed large at First Street and Ocean Drive, adjacent to the Miami Beach Kennel Club.
Whiddon was in fourth grade when his dad took him to the Sunnyland Theater in South Miami to see “Endless Summer,” an epic film still relevant today.
In the old Ron Jon strip mall store (before it later blossomed into the two-story “world’s largest” surfing showcase), Whiddon bought a 9-foot, 8-inch Yater Spoon foam and fiberglass board at the old Ron Jon shop. “We had a big, old blue pop-out, but I didn’t want to share the board anymore,” Whiddon recalled.
As the sport evolved into the shortboard era in the mid-’60s, it gained popularity, especially in the tropics.
“You’d see surfers cutting down their beautiful boards, which were getting shorter, but it was everything — The Beach Boys, ‘Surfin’ USA,’ peace and love. Everyone wanted to be a surfer.”
A creative design and advertising professional, Whiddon lived in Coconut Grove on Biscayne Bay, 8-10 miles from the beach via the McArthur Causeway.
He lived far from the beach, so he used a pay phone to call Jack Diamond, the owner of Jack’s Stand outside the dog kennel club. To save those dimes, they would call collect and ask for “Morey Pope” – code words for surf conditions. “If Jack said, ‘He’ll be back at 2,’ we knew it was 2 feet, and if he said, ‘He’s not here, he’s chopping wood,’ we knew there would be a chop.”
In a charity event to raise awareness about plastics in the ocean, Whiddon paddled stand-up from Bimini to Miami (17 hours, 48 minutes) with Thad Foote.
His favorite thing to do was paddleboard around Hobie Beach or around Virginia Key by Marine Stadium on Saturday mornings. It was especially fun to surf Bear Cut Inlet by Jimbo’s Bar and Grill when big waves came from the north swells, sometimes even paddling three quarters of a mile to catch the best waves.
The people told Whiddon that Miami has no surfable waves when he moved to California to continue his college education. From my perspective, if you learn to surf anywhere on the East Coast — with long flat spells, wind chop, and where you’d be happy to get a three-second ride — you could surf anywhere.”
Surfers in the Miami area are considered ‘kooks’
When Bruce Walker was at the University of Miami in the early 1960s, he said he needed money, so he partnered with surfing star Lewis Graves and Ted James (the original Fox Surf Shop in West Palm Beach) to open Ocean Avenue Surfboards at 10 Ocean Drive, just a few steps from the dog track and beach, where parking was 25 cents.
Miami surfers at the time were known as ‘kooks.’ It was horrible, but probably well-deserved,” said Walker, 69, from Oahu.
In my experience, those waves (sometimes) looked like Hawaii, so word spread pretty quickly and the whole attitude changed. It wasn’t great, but it was even.”
The Florida Surf Museum has an epic photo of an epic swell – maybe 8 feet – taken off Ocean Drive, south of the jetty leading to the port.
Hughes laughed as he said, “If you’re from Miami, it’s a 12-footer.”.
Shortly after Walker left Miami, board shaper Bud Gardner – who was also inducted into the East Coast Hall of Fame before he passed away – opened the Bud Gardner Surf Shop.
A push was made by the Whitman brothers
In the 1930s, teenage brothers Dudley and Bill Whitman, who learned to surf in Hawaii, began passionately promoting the sport in Miami from their Collins Avenue home. Aside from creating the first underwater camera, Bill is also credited with building Florida’s first Hawaiian surfboard — 10 feet long, 10 inches thick and made of sugar pine.
The Wisconsin native, Tom Blake, first tried surfing on a surfboard left behind in Florida in 1922 and soon introduced a lighter hollow surfboard, revolutionizing surfing technology and igniting the sport.
On 133rd Street in North Miami, Dudley Whitman opened the first surf shop in Miami in the mid-1930s.
“As much as they were known as promoters, they were also pretty good surfers,” Hughes said.
Founded in 1956, Little Hawaii by Bill Riedlof opened in North Miami Beach, and the South Florida Surf Club became a hot spot for surf culture in Hollywood. In 1961, West Coast East Surf Shop opened on 1st Street in Miami Beach, and became Surfboards Miami by Bruce Freeman. Adventurers Dive and Surf was another shop that shaped the future of the sport.
Among the early stars of the sport in South Florida, from Bal Harbour to South Beach, were Mark and Roddy Perry, Roger Kincaid, Ralph Lima, Joe Burnell, Randy and David Smith, Adam Salvio, David Byrd, Gary Minervini, Mike Beluzzi and Lewis Graves.
As president of the Dade County Surfing Association, Ross Houston lobbied successfully for new surfing areas to open, from Fort Pierce to Miami.
When he was living in Miami Beach, Dick Catri and his buddy, Jack “Murph the Surf” Murphy, performed hotel dive acts as the true stars of Miami surfing. Eventually, they became internationally recognized for surfing and promoting the sport. Murphy, however, gained notoriety as a convicted murderer and for stealing the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History in 1964.
In 1972, Ocean Avenue Surf Shop opened (“We were late to the game,” Walker said), and later sold it to a man who ran it successfully for one year.
“He had one really good year of business,” Walker said. “But that was after the Marielitos were released by (Fidel) Castro. A lot of (criminals) set up in South Beach. They would rob his store in the middle of the night.”
A beachside dog track has been replaced by condos with 40-60 floors. The municipal pier, once a crowded venue for big contests, has been demolished. Art-Deco buildings now line the area where Walker and Gardner had their surf shops.
In reflecting on his younger years, Whiddon said, “I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”. “It was a wonderful time to be a surfer in Miami.”
