It was about 1972 and I was with my friend Charlie and three others in Charlie’s ford van. We were coming south on 5 from LA…I remember 3 guys in back. I’m in the passenger seat and we are close to the 55 (by Newport Beach). Charlie is reading the newspaper, drinking some coffee and steering with his knees. John, who is in back reaches around Charlie’s eyes so he couldn’t see the road…just joking around like that. We got to the exit by Trestles, parked, and waxed our boards up. It was about 3:30am in morning so it was pitch black. Charlie said he figured out a “new” way there so we followed him. We went down this driveway and everyone was saying, where are we? So Charlie says, “This is Nixon’s house”…then President Nixon’s house. So then everyone is getting really nervous. We end up walking by a guard shack and we had to duck under the window of the guard shack where he was reading a magazine.
We climbed over fence…I remember it was pitch black. At some point we noticed we were being followed by cameras …on tracks…it was freaky. Of course we had to stop to moon and flip off the cameras. We got down close to the surf and could hear it pounding. Finally down on the beach we could see the surf cause the moon was out. When the first bit of light came out we started walking over the rocks to the surf. Just then we heard Jeeps coming so we started going over the rocks as fast as possible. There was this guy on megaphone yelling to get out of the water? Charlie of course, “knew” the rules and began telling us about how we were past mean high tide and so were within our rights etc.. Anyway we got out there and there were 5 other guys in the water.
So were in water ignoring the guy on megaphone. They must have decided to just wait till we got out. My Dad was a cop so I decided I wasn’t getting caught. When there was about 20 guys in the water this little submarine pops up and a guy is in it on another megaphone telling us to get out of the water. Someone said that Nixon was at the house. Of course we all ignored him.
After surfing those guys were still on the beach. We paddled north to cottons…got out of water by the campgrounds then went back to car and never got caught. Pretty fun…
Another time I went there with John Kies and I think Marc Adam from Encinitas. They said they had another way in to Trestles. So they told me to get off on the Basilone. We then went over the freeway and got back on going South. They told me to park the car on the side of the freeway by Church’s and to pop the hood up like we were broken down.
I did and we went surfing at Lowers. When we got back John says I can’t believe it worked! There was a little flag on my car to show that the car had been checked but it was still there. Evidently they had never done this before and so had me be their guinea pig.
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Here is an interview and video of Greg Sauritch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdPcbA3OhYc
