Dave Schauber

Surfing Oil Piers the day The Army Corps of Engineers were gonna blow it up. The waves were so good no one would go in so they blew it up the following day instead. 

More about Dave: Contributing Writer for Surfing Magazine and Electric Ink from 95 to 2001

ASP WQS Judge 98 to 2006, Mavericks Judge 2002 to 2009 Creative Director and Team Manager for Glas since Summer 2008

Favorite Story: Damn! I said as my alarm clock woke me to the sound of AC/DC’s Hells Bells. It was 4 am on a Frostbitten Carpinteria Morning and it was time to load up my truck for another mission up to “The J”. After brewing a fresh Thermos of Hot Joe I headed over to pick up Chris Brown who was the one who talked me into going on what would have otherwise just been another routine day at The Con.

The Buoys were an impressive 8 at 20 as the sun peaked it’s virgin rays over the horizon. As anyone clued in knows, it takes a bit of time to get up there. Throw in a stop for gas and snacks and it seemed like we would never reach our destination. Amazingly with a little coaxing my little Ford Ranger weaved and wound it’s way through the maze of curves and we finally caught out first glimpse of the ocean from a distance and you could easily see the winds were offshore, Hmmm we said in an amped sort of tone, ” Should be a sick session “.

Suited up and boards waxed, we headed toward the trail to what appeared to be just another regular old day of tubes followed by a nice juicy J burger. Little did we know what was in store for us. As we got to the cliff to start the journey down it seemed to be much bigger than what the 8 foot morning buoy had been reading. The surf was echoing loudly off the cliffs and the ability to see them was somewhat shrouded by the offshore mist. I pulled the buoy box out of my back pack and we proceeded down the hill listening like little children to Saturday morning cartoon. After a minute or 2 we heard the shocking words BOOMNG from the box ” Pt. Conception Buoy 14 feet at 20 seconds ” almost as if it was heckling us for being so miserably unprepared.

But we were already there, all that way to the end of the earth or so it seemed at the time. I wasn’t going out there that was for sure. T-rights looked like Mini Maverick’s and The Left was even bigger with guys like Tustin and Harbor Harry already charging the bombs. It took Brownie a while to get out but once he did it wasn’t long before he was in position for a bomb. I could see a set shifting towards them and sure enough C.B. whipped my 6"8 into position and dropped in like a Kamikaze Pilot on suicide mission. Amazingly he made the drop and worked his way through the bottom turn and projected himself back toward the lip carving under it’s hatchet like jaws and back out again mocking the conditions with legendary C.B. style.

Chris has now gone on to be one of the best big wave surfers in the world. He is an amazingly nice guy and an accomplished waterman. I will never forget that day. I am stoked to call him my friend.