Profile: Surf Legend Mike Doyle

In Mike Doyle's autobiography ‘Morning Glass' he tells of his first ride on a surfboard as a 13-year-old gremmie. "Tiki Mike" caught and rode the wave, then bailed into the water spread-eagled-and got whacked in the nuts by the heavy mahogany board. And he's never stopped loving it....

Time can be surfed as it runs through space on its continuum according to quantum mechanics surfer/artist Mike Doyle. Whales, dolphins, Zen masters, musicians, artists, writers, poets, computer geeks, cowboys, (insert your favorite), and surfers - all ride the same wave.

For some surfers - times continuum appears to stand still. I met a man aged 92 catching waves at Costa Azul near Cabo last year who makes my 80 year-old surfing father seem like a youngster. Doyle in his mid-60s is a kid by comparison with a lot of waves to catch.

Last winter- 25 foot heavies were rolling in at the surf break in Cerritos an hour north of Cabo. I nearly died trying to catch just one wave - they were coming in fast and huge - and there was Doyle - catching one after another on a 12' gun- he was wicked.

I found Mike Doyle reflective and modest about his life as a world champion surfer, waterman, artist, writer, surf movie actor, sports product designer, promoter, and surf school operator. Doyle reminisced with me about many of the seminal players in America's surfing movement. Riding life's wave - he has surfed and partied with, known and loved many of the top wave riders and entrepreneurs in the surf movement.

Doyle is best understood within the context of the surfing movement. For without Doyle and others like him- there would be no context. After interviewing Doyle and reading his book Morning Glass -I can understand why he's often called "Chairman of the Board" -as in ‘surfboard.'

His "company" includes John Severson founder of Surfer Magazine, Bruce Brown maker of the classic 1966 surf movie Endless Summer, surf legend Duke Kahanamoku, competitive surfers and all the early board makers including Don Hansen, Robert August, Dewey Weber, Jacobs, Tom Morey of Morey boogie boards, the founders of surf wear companies such as OP, and Hang Ten - actress Gidget and thousands of others like myself who really didn't understand what was happening when it all happened. But we dug it - and surfing remains a part our continuum as well.

For Mike, surfing was never a fad. When the hippie revolution became the new scene - the popularity of surfing took a dive. Overnight VW vans the world over had the surf- board decals peeled off and replaced with flowers and peace symbols. "Perhaps the surf scene just diverged into skateboarding, boogie boarding, and snow boarding - later to re-emerge as the wholesome family sport it is now." - mused Doyle-attempting to explain the mysterious decades long drop in the popularity of surfing and its subsequent re-growth and stabilization. "My soft surfboards are partly responsible for surfings come-back by making it safer for people to learn." He continued: "Beginners are afraid two things - getting bit by a shark and getting thumped on the head (or nuts) by a loose board." It's been said that the waters in Los Cabos are pretty safe because all the sharks are employed in the hotels selling time-shares.

But Mike was never into fads - for he was always more than a surfer. He's a waterman. One who lives by, in and off the sea. Hawaiians are legendary watermen. They had to be self-sufficient, making ones own canoes, surfboards, spears, fishing gear, clothing, and housing. Music, spirituality, camaraderie, the ability to play all day long, hunting and fishing, loving nature, thrill seeking, constantly testing limits while sometimes having near-death experiences - are all traits of those original men of the sea. One can observe the same rhythms in Doyle's life as one sees in a Hawaiian riding a wave to shore in his dugout canoe or in a pod of dolphins surfing inside a wave.

He was a lifeguard for years in Santa Monica, won the first ever Ironman Triathlon contest, won the first cash prize given in a surfing contest and was awarded a trophy for the "Most Versatile and Competitive Surfer in the World" by none other than the Hawaiian Duke Kanhanamoku. The list of his prowess continues with winning grueling 26-mile offshore Catalina to Manhattan Beach paddleboard races, and setting the world figure-eight ski pattern record. He won surf contests around the world from California to Australia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and hell and back including the 1970 World Surfing Championship. He won "Best Surfer" in two Surfer Magazine contests, and induction in the Surfers Hall of Fame. He and his buddies pioneered big wave surfing and shooting waves tubes in Hawaii.

Doyle shared two events in his life with me that required all his faith in himself and skills as a waterman to survive. Both were impossible, near-death experiences for anyone but a waterman. One was his ending up adrift in a small dory without one of his oars 12 miles off Los Cabos, Baja Sur under worsening seas, skies, and winds. This terrible moment of truth brought forth an abundance of self-criticism and enlightenment: "Well Doyle, you really fucked up this time." Alone and adrift in building seas, with winds driving him toward Hawaii - the waterman made his way back to shore, paddling for hours on bleeding knees with one oar- repeating two strokes on the same side - then letting the wind off his bow push the boat back on course before stroking again.

The other extreme event was a challenge of his own choosing. He decided to swim with his buddy Joey Cabell- the Na Pali coast of Kauai. They accomplished 20 miles or so in a few days, swimming for seven hours straight daily, staying close in to avoid the shark infested outer waters, eating raw shellfish and sleeping on the beach covered in sand at night to stay warm.

The coast is rugged with 3,000-foot cliffs, rocks, reefs and with few places to get out of the water- and has the biggest surf in the islands according to Doyle. One cannot help but appreciate his level of comfort and oneness in the ocean, his complete harmony with nature and confidence in himself as a waterman and a person who enjoys extreme challenges.

A surfer has a lot of time on his hands, and surfing often takes priority over jobs, school, spouses, family and home. Hardcore surfers sometime end up living together in packs near the beach developing a brotherhood of the sea where life revolves around the tides, surf conditions and partying. If the surf is up, the house spills out its inhabitants or the shop is shuttered with a "Gone Surfing" sign posted. And Surfboards take priority over cars.

Unfashionable Woodies, old family cars, retired hearses and ambulances were among the first anti-materialistic statements of the time by the 50's "Young Generation." The Hippies followed suit. Doyle owned a funky 3-wheel Messerschmitt bubble-top mini-car, an old 50's Packard, and later a Cadillac ambulance. Seriously employed young men his age were driving new Mustangs and GTO's.

Surfers like natives everywhere find shelter cheap - they scavenge, improvise, and use local materials. Doyle lived with his buddies close to the beach sharing rental houses as a young man. He lived in his childhood tree house as an adult, and built a house felling and sawing the timber in north coastal California. Later he bought a wreck of a house near the beach in San Diego at auction and made it habitable, then built his own palapa-roofed casita above Costa Azul's beaches in Los Cabos out of concrete, plaster and block.

The Baja house lives and breathes with its palm palapa roof and window walls of patio doors. Its view of the surf below is killer - better than new luxury homes costing millions in exclusive developments up the highway. Doyle teaches us: You don't need much - if you have your health and the beach nearby- you have it all.

In the 50's and 60's his generation was taught to go to school, get a degree, job, house, family etc. Only beatniks, artists, musicians, writers, motorcycle outlaws, cowboys, surfers and later-Hippies resisted this marching order. Here's a guy who found his way to inner peace and harmony without fighting or confronting the system. In a way surfers show us - how to have more fun in life by avoiding the traps of materialism and following the mantra: "Less is more." Doyle travels the world and enjoys life to its fullest - without buying an SUV or a time-share. Each year he leaves with friends for Indonesia where he sails around the islands for a "couple of months or so" in a boat surfing remote island breaks.

When the surf was down - creative play would often set in. Doyle and his buds experimented inventing surf wax in the back yard, made board shorts of boat canvas, acted in early surf movies, and designed and shaped surfboards. Doyle invented the soft surfboard and the snowboard, both ultimately providing fun and excitement for millions. They'd experiment building surfboards in different shapes for different waves, installing two, three-up to dozens of fins on a surfboard just to see what might happen. Surfboard non-slip decks, special paints, designs, board leashes, board carry-bags, and surfboard car roof racks came from these backyard enterprises. Surfers took their sport to a new level by inventing Wind Surfing so they could get back on the water in blown-out surf conditions. It was fun work. "I never wanted to be a businessman," he tells me. "Let the guy who has a house and family run the business - he HAS to have a job."

Doyle prefers creating products rather than managing businesses. Consequently, his ideas and businesses would sometimes collapse due to lack of management - or lack of interest when the surf was up. More than once, he moved back home - out of money (last time at age 34), to live in his childhood backyard tree house. Of this retreat for licking life's wounds, he mentions the peace and serenity of living up high in the tree, hearing the wind, and feeling the motion of the branches. "It's like resting on a surfboard waiting to catch a wave or living in a palapa hut on the seashore."

Mike comes from the post WW-2 generation that brought the esoteric sport of Hawaiian surf riding into mainstream America and the world's consciousness. California surfers invented their own music, fashion, lingo, and culture - and continued to improve and further the sport and its unique lifestyle. Middle-class American kids living hundreds of miles away from the ocean bleached their hair blond, wore white Levis, tennis shoes, white tee-shirts-wearing open wool Pendleton shirts over the tee-shirts like a loose jacket.

Wanna-be surfers in Kansas, St. Louis and Chicago cruised hamburger drive-ins in their parent's wagons with surfboards sticking out the tailgates as if they had just returned from a day surfing. Mid-West kids surfed lakes and rivers while being towed behind boats. Doyle tells of his surfing behind a yacht on a sewage-polluted river in Ohio with TV station cameras rolling - covering his visit to town for Catalina Swimwear while (as succinctly written in his book) "...turds were floating by."

Doyle is a purist in some ways, eschewing crass commercialism whenever it rears its ugly head. He soon learned that Catalina wasn't into making serious swimwear for surfers - "I was in Texas surfing a one-foot wave in front of the whole town and two TV cameras when the ass ripped out of my trunks - I realized then I had to design my own board shorts." And he did-using durable boat canvas, quality zippers and heavy marine grade resistant sewing thread. Catalina's directors weren't interested - they were into making "fake swimwear for spectators." Posers.

The swimwear industry split into three general lines-traditional Fashion Swimwear, Competitive Swimwear and Surf wear. Old line swimwear manufacturers like Catalina, Jantzen and Speedo had a hard time understanding the change in their industry. A demographic study made by Speedo study showed their men's swimwear line catered primarily to competitive swimmers, men over 50, and homosexuals.

By the late 80's Catalina long into standard Fashion Swimwear went bankrupt selling out to investors. Jantzen closed their 100-year-old plant in Oregon laying-off 1,000's of workers and moved production off-shore to the Orient to survive. Doyle, not interested in running his swimwear company, sold his share of his surf wear business to his partner to spend more time surfing waves instead of desks.

Mike has been living in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur for over twenty years. His casita is perched high on a hill overlooking the Acapulquito (little Acapulco) beach and the ‘Old Man's' surf break. From his patio, he can watch surfers in long board heaven and his surf school that has taught thousands of people to surf over the years. Looking to the east a few hundred yards- is the intermediate break known as "The Rock" and still farther east is Zippers-where the pros rip the most consistent beautifully formed waves in Baja. Three beautiful slices of surf heaven all just a short paddle away from each other.

He can watch his lifeguard/surf instructors taking students out a few at a time - after first giving them lessons on the beach. On surf instruction he says: "I can tell when I see someone stand up on a board while on the beach, what they are doing wrong and correct it there."

"See that hotel tour group out in the water? He says pointing them out to me - "The group is too big - Look! One student is drifting onto the sharp coral covered rocks, while two more just got May-tagged by a wave." I watch the newbies tumble about as in a washing machine spin-cycle. "I never let my students get hurt" he fumes. "Three students per instructor is about all it should be," he continues. "Surfing is easy if you learn with an instructor - a lot easier than snow skiing."

Doyle lets me in on one of his surf lesson teaching secrets - getting behind the students board as their first waves come up and pushing the board forward so they can easily catch the wave. "With me - they will catch 10 or 15 waves in an hours time - if they tried it on their own - they'd get beat-up in the surf and catch one wave if they were lucky." "The idea is to show them a good time the first time they are out - then they'll come back and want to do it again."

He has a symbiotic relationship with the nearby Cabo Surf Hotel. He tells me of how when the Balderrama family purchased the hotel over a dozen years ago, he advised them to make it Cabos premier surf hotel. There was plenty of other hotels around- all with common ordinary names like Hacienda Del Moscas, Regina's Time-Share Villas and Buzzard's Beach Resort & Spa. "I advised them that mature surfers who had "made it" in life were a true niche market and given the hotels location in front of one of the worlds greatest surf breaks - they should make it into a first class surf hotel." Well, he taught the hotels owner Mauricio Balderrama to surf and the rest is history.

Today the hotel is well known not only for its commanding view overlooking Los Cabos famous surf breaks, but for being the only hotel in Los Cabos with a surf shop, board rentals, surf school, surf Art Gallery, Sea Spa and its 7 Seas Restaurant with its priceless view of the surf scene. The surf hotel concept became a reality when the hotel was named one of the top-secret hotels in the world by Elle magazine. Today it often competes with the Palmilla and Las Ventanas hotels for the same Land Rover- private jet- set clientele. But only the ones who love the sea....and surfing.

Mikes mother was an aircraft plant factory worker who was also a talented graphic artist. Mike inherited her love of art and has painted and exhibited his artwork for many years. Surfers being fearless yet sensitive beings with a lot of time on their hands think nothing of picking up a brush and painting. Some begin by doing design work on surfboards - eventually creating paintings for gallery shows. Today some surfers have formal college art educations - and combine their passion for surfing with their art avocation. Surf Art has become an art movement with its own stars, collectors and even art museum shows at traditional art museums.

A quick Internet search brought up Surf Art exhibitions at the Royal Albert in the U.K., the Laguna Beach Art Museum, San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Oceanside California art museums. Several museums in Hawaii and Australia have had Surf Art exhibitions as well. Then there are dozens of pure surf museums full of old surfboards, fading photos of surfers and their art located in coastal cities around the world.

Mike Doyle's paintings have been called primitive - and given his lack of formal art education - they are simple in composition and anatomy. But so was Grandma Moses - one of America's most famous and loved primitive painters. Doyle's paintings are Doyle -joyful, colorful, reflective of his love of the beach, the ocean, sea creatures, panga fishermen and everything else in his world. Surreal paintings of mermaids, desert cow skulls, trophy fish in blazing colors and fishing pangas at rest on the shore - all figure in his subject matter. He paints from the heart, painting what he knows and loves. Going beyond the impressionists-he puts his paint on thick, with power, and spontaneously without fear. He paints like he surfs.

David Mandich, has been living, surfing, writing and selling real estate in Cabo for 10 years. A Century 21 Paradise Propeties Agent, he can be contacted at: davidm@century21baja.com (From the USA) 520 204-1604, Cabo Local: 624-130-1404, Cel. 044 624 132-8919

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