Well, it's winter and there is one cold hard indisputable fact facing all of us who surf here in Southern California.  It's getting really cold.  The water is down below sixty and dropping by the millisecond. 

These days, of course, there are wonderful modern surfing wetsuits that will keep you warm on even the coldest days.  So well-equipped visitors to SoCal this winter will have no problem catching the best waves of the year.  But when I was a kid, we didn't have wetsuits.  That's why I, for one, hate cold water with a passion.  A wise and extremely saged old surf guru that I know, the notorious surfing legend Mickey "the Mongoose" Munoz, once said, and has been quoted heavily for saying it for many years now, "It's better to be warm than cold."
 
I, for one of zillions, bought into that wiseism huge time. It is better to be warm than cold.  Chattering teeth andviolently shaking body is not the finest form of recreation or relaxing.  Brings  a whole new meaning to the term"buurrrrrrittttttooooos!" Not a super sized Mexican meal.

As a kid, the coldest of the cold winters we would surf in trunks and that was it.  No warm wetsuits for us.  Iremember the routine very well.  Surf until you were so cold you could not feel your feet on the board anymore and then dash out of the water and into the shower. Turn it up full hot and stay there until the hot water ran out.  That was never long enough though.  Then knock down a big cup of hot chocolate and convinceyourself you were warm enough to DO IT AGAIN.  The really really worst part was putting back on the freezing cold wet trunks.  THAT was surf agony at its agonizingly agonizing pinnacle of horrific horror.  Thattook you so far beyond "goosebumps" it wasn't funny.  We are talking "condorbumps."  Freaking "Rodanbumps."  It was clammy and nasty too. 

And on top of that you had to make the second go out at least long enough for the hot water tank to fill up again.  If you came in too soon, you were doomed to be frozen turkey.

Corky Carroll: Five-time US Overall Surfing champion.  Three-time International Surfing champion.  International Big Wave champion.  World Small Wave champion.  Named Best Surfer in the World in 1968 by Surfer Magazine poll.  Miller Lite All Star.  And voice of Grubby Grouper on Spongebob Squarepants.