The new home of the California Surf Museum opened February 16, and it took me way too long to check it out. Having finally rectified that, I can report that it’s worth the trip. I plan to stop in again any time I’m anywhere remotely near the neighborhood. Anyone with any interest in San Diego’s vibrant surfing history should do the same.
The neighborhood is Oceanside, home to the CSM since 1991. (Founded in 1986, the museum first occupied George’s Restaurant in Encinitas, then moved to Encinitas’s Moonlight Plaza and later for a few years to Promenade Plaza in Pacific Beach.) Most recently, it was crammed into a former drugstore at the corner of Coast Highway and Pier View Way. The new venue is just a block away at 312 Pier View, but in terms of ambience, it could be in another country: sleek and modern and First World, rather than old and funky and vaguely Undeveloped.
The exhibition space, in particular, is a huge improvement. Two excellent exhibits currently fill it. The “Timeline of Surfing” looks chronologically at the many ways in which surfing has influenced California (and more broader American) culture over the past 100 years. Large panels nicely explain the many artifacts, which include the wooden board crafted by Ralph Noisat that may well have been the first ever used to surf the waters off San Diego. (I presented the evidence for this in a December 14, 2006 Reader cover story.) 
The other current exhibit, Sidewalk Surfers, looks at the history of skateboarding — totally appropriate considering the links between the two board sports. I was particularly thrilled to see the crude conveyance cobbled together by local surfer Peter Parkin in 1947, and reputed to be the first true skateboard on earth.
The skateboarding exhibit is a private collection by local skater/surfer Dale Smith, and like the Timeline, it won’t be displayed permanently. Along with the changing exhibitions, the museum has an ample gift shop (though in the large, new space, the items for sale feel somehow fewer than those offered in the old former drugstore). And there’s a busy events schedule, with the museum’s annual Legend’s Day up next on Sunday, October 4. This year it honors Duke Boyd, creator of the Hang Ten line of clothing, and the man who brought indispensable Velcro to the surfing world. Free Legends Day activities will also include a performance by the Moonlight Beach Ukulele Strummers and Dancers, followed by a luau (for which admission is $20 for non-members.)
