The new issue of SURFER just arrived, and of course I thumbed straight to my page. Six months ago, the magazine graciously awarded me the “Archive” column, which works like this. The photo editor emails me a dusky gem from the vault. I crack my knuckles, wave the fingertips over the keyboard, and tap out 300-or-so of the finest. This month's Archive photos showed a guy stand-up surfing the Wedge during the 1975 Monster From New Zealand swell. I cleverly compared that event to the recent Hurricane Marie swell.

Now here it was, in print. I settled into my black leather Le Corbusier LC3, crossed my legs, flecked a spot of dust from my sleeve, began reading, and a moment or two later chucked softly and muttered, “Warshaw, old boy, you’ve done it again.” Then I noticed the final paragraph had been cut. My eyebrows knitted. Not in anger. The text had run a bit long. Editors must edit. But I could not for the life of me recall what that last paragraph was about. Then it hit me like a gong. Dale Webster. He of the soulful rheumy-touched eyes and the mind-boggling daily surfing streak. The sweetest, gentlest hardcore surfer in the world. Cut my paragraph on Laird, Gerry, Kelly, Steph or John John? Not a problem. Part of the job. Cut my paragraph on Dale? My heart is broken.

Good thing I’m CEO-founder-publisher-editor of my own website. Here now is the full-length, unadulterated Archive piece, with Dale Webster restored and bringing it all home.

Cheers to you, Dale. May your streak be only half-completed.

Marie vs. the Monster. Hurricane Marie, 2014. The Monster from New Zealand, 1975. The two greatest West Coast-hitting south swells of all time. There was another big one back there in 1938, or 1838, whenever, but they couldn’t be bothered to name storms then, so it doesn't count.

Plenty of differences between the two swells. Marie was local, rolling north by northwest in stately form up from the tip of Baja. The Monster from New Zealand, despite its name, was actually a hybrid: a 

 swallowed whole by a long-period beauty generated deep in the Roaring Forties. (“The Monster from Baja and New Zealand” didn’t zing, so the Baja part got dropped.) Marie came on radar when it was still just a plucky little pinwheel of moist air, and surfers watched it grow in time-lapse graphics like expectant parents watching 

 vids of their child. Attack plans were drawn up. Sick days were calculated. Batteries were changed, fins changed, cars gassed up. Days before the first waves hit, all was in readiness. The Monster from New Zealand? It was 1975, people. Wave forecasting was done with twigs and chicken blood. SURFER began its coverage of the swell with these three words: “It attacked overnight.” You woke up, freaked out, scrambled. In retrospect, the Monster event feels bigger than it probably was because that the surf world was so much smaller.

There are similarities between Marie and the Monster, too. Each arrived to glassy-smooth nearshore waters. Each one zapped reefs and beaches to life that normally lay comatose for decades at a time. And of course the Wedge, in both cases, by producing the biggest and most ridiculous waves on the coast, did its best to suck all the oxygen from the room. I never will understand why people ride surfboards at the Wedge. When the shot on this page first ran, in this very magazine, almost 40 years ago, I remember being half impressed and half “what's the point?” As for Jamie O’Brien’s Wedge clickbait from Marie, my finger just couldn’t be roused to hit “Play.”

During the Monster from New Zealand, and even during Marie, thousands of amazing surf sessions took place up and down the coast out of camera range. Which brings us to one final connection between the two swells. Dale Webster, of Vally Ford, California, just north of San Francisco, surfed them both. Rode every day during the Monster from New Zealand. Rode every day during Marie. 

And rode every God-blessed day in-between.

 Fourteen-thousand-two-hundred-forty-four straight surf days, without a miss. A generation from now, there will be another greatest-ever south swell. And in that post-apocalyptic time, with the rest of humanity turned to dust, Webster will still be catching his daily three waves, while Keith Richards strums “Sweet Virginia” on the beach and cheers him on.

BALLAD OF DALE WEBSTER: PART ONE

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