Bodysurfers tangle with the guard
John Shearer bodysurfs north of the Manhattan Beach pier. Photo Second of two parts One day in 1966, Bob Holmes stopped by the lifeguard tower just north of the Manhattan Beach pier on his way to bodysurf. Legendary big wave surfer Greg Noll happened to be at the tower, visiting his fellow lifeguard and big wave surfer Mark Stange. Noll, known as “Da Bull” for his hard-charging style, was at the peak of his considerable powers. In 1964, he was the first to catch what until then had been considered an impossible wave, the 25 to 30 ft. sets breaking outside the reef at Banzai Pipeline off Oahu. He rode the wave on a giant 11 ‘8 board — this was before the shortboard revolution — and the feat made him world famous (A lesser known fact is that Stange had been on the same wave but wiped out). Holmes was co-founder of the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association, a collection of avid and slyly gifted watermen and women who had made the north side of the pier their home. Surfing was an ascendent sport, and Noll its biggest star; the Beach Boys’ songs about the surf lifestyle had captured the country’s imagination, and on the silver screen, “The Endless Summer” had just that year given the…
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