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Surfing Santa, surf camp director Vince Ray remembered with paddleout at Hermosa Beach pier

Kevin Cody|February 25, 2024
Redondo Baywatch fires its water canon over mourners during a paddlout for Hermosa Surf Camp director Vince Ray on Sunday, February 24 at the Hermosa Beach pier. In the foreground is former assistant camp director Glen Jensen, wearing his Hermosa Surf Camp rash guard. Photo by Kevin Cody
As director of the Hermosa Surf Camp from 1991 to 2024, Vince Ray shared the stoke of surfing with more groms than anyone else in South Bay history. Each summer over 400 kids attended his camp in front of the 10th Street lifeguard tower, just south of the Hermosa Beach pier. Kids learned not only to stand on a surfboard, but also  to read the ocean, surfing etiquette, and some unconventional maneuvers like the coffin, the cockroach and Ray’s signature model pose.

Every holiday season, Ray further shared the stroke as Easy Reader’s Surfing Santa. He made sure Santa was in perfect trim on an overhead wave for the photo that would appear on the cover of Easy Reader’s holiday issue.

“I don’t want people to think Santa is a kook,” Ray said in explaining why it was so important  that the surf be good on the day of hisSanta shoot. 

Ray passed away Wednesday morning, January 4, at age 66,  after a brief fight with pancreatic cancer.

Saturday, February 24, on the beach at 10th Street in Hermosa, where he conducted his camp, Ray’s former campers, surf instructors, and lifelong friends gathered for a paddleout in his memory. ER

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