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After a quarter-century of surfing, it’s not
unreasonable to expect a surfer to show signs of
slowing down. After a quarter century of surfing
the South Bay’s polluted waters, over-populated
line-ups, and thick, walled-up closeouts, it’s
not unreasonable to expect a surfer to show signs
of bacterial meningitis, high blood pressure and
mild brain damage.
Los Angeles County Lifeguard Captain, Tom Seth,
has been charging South Bay breaks relentlessly
for over twenty-five years, and contrary to one’s
expectations, shows no signs of slowing down (or
any other South Bay surf symptoms). “I’m
38 years old.” He says. “You’re
not going to find too many guys my age that are
as amped to surf as I am. Surfing totally consumes
my life.”
Since the age of 13, when he got his first “real”
board, a 5’ 10” Rick Twin-fin, Tom Seth
has been a fanatical surfer. “When I got that
board, that’s when I really started surfing.
From that moment on that’s all I wanted to
do.” And whether it was every morning before
school as a teenager, in his off time as recurrent
(part-time) lifeguard after graduating from high
school, or during his breaks and days off as a lifeguard
captain, Seth has made it a priority to take advantage
of every opportunity he has to surf.
After so many years of consistently surfing Manhattan
Beach and its surrounding breaks, Tom Seth has established
himself as a venerable force in South Bay Lineups.
He has a reputation for being a powerhouse in the
water and a relentless big wave charger, and by
all appearances he fits the part. Standing at 6’
with large, broad shoulders and a thick neck, he
looks like he could have been a football player
or wrestler.
Greg Lee has been surfing with Seth for over fifteen
years. “The only way I can describe his surfing,”
Lee says, “is radical power. He’s one
of the best surfers I’ve ever seen.”
24-year-old Spencer Parker is a recurrent lifeguard
who has known Seth since he was a kid. “[When
Tom is surfing] he looks like the scariest guy in
the world, but he’s always smiling.”
Fellow Lifeguard Brian Kari has surfed with Seth
and can attest to his propensity to look for big
waves. “I’m always a little nervous
to go surfing with Tom. He’s fearless. If
you’re going to surf with Tom, and he says
it’s going to be big, you better be ready.”
Fellow lifeguard Lars Gustafson puts it a little
more bluntly. “[He’s a] f%#king kook,
ha, ha, that guy kills it.”
Despite Seth’s dominating physical presence
in the water, his disposition and demeanor out of
water, are something quite different. Seth exudes
a calmness and affability that seems almost at odds
with his intimidating reputation in the water. And
his relaxed, almost soft-spoken, voice and boyish
grin create a bit of a disconnect when he starts
talking about some of his more harrowing experiences
as a surfer and lifeguard.
In addition to dropping in on South Bay bombs for
the last twenty-five years, Seth has traveled all
over the world in search of waves. He’s surfed
classic breaks such as Sunset, Backyard, Rocky Point
and Pipeline at Hawaii’s North Shore, in addition
to traveling half way around the world to places
like Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and the Mentawai
Islands. He’s also surfed up and down the
California coast, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
If you’ve ever wondered how a South Bay surfer
might hold up at such world-renowned and notorious
breaks, Seth offers a few hopeful words for the
aspiring surf traveler. According to Seth, years
of paddling out through the South Bay’s strong
currents and heavy closeouts provided him with greater
strength and better understanding of rip currents
than other breaks might offer.
“Most of these great [breaks all over the
world] are perfect reefs. At Sunset you can paddle
out and not get your hair wet. Here you paddle out
and take it on the head. It’s tough. It’s
only at beach breaks where you get that. Now, when
you get out [at Sunset] it’s a different story.”
Over his years trekking the globe, Seth has developed
an affinity for bigger waves. He was initially attracted
to the bigger adrenaline rush that larger swells
provided, but he also liked the smaller crowds.
As he looked for greater rushes and thinner lineups,
he naturally moved on to bigger waves. This progression,
however, wasn’t always smooth.
“My comfort level changes year to year. It
all depends on what I’ve been doing. Last
year at Ocean Beach (S.F.) I surfed triple-overhead-plus
waves 3 days in a row. When I returned to the south
bay, it was like nothing. But there have been times
where I haven’t surfed big waves in a while,
and I’ll be out here looking at double-overhead
waves, and I’ll get butterflies in my stomach.”
In his global search for surf, Seth has found himself
in compromising situations on more than one occasion.
One of his more precarious rides occurred in Porto
Escondido, Mexico. It was the last day of the trip
and consequently, the biggest. The sun was going
down, and the swell was building. Due to the high
number of closeouts and likelihood of breaking his
board, Seth was riding with no leash. The way the
beach is set up the swells build the farther south
into the middle of the beach you go , so when he
took his last wave of the day, which was a monster
right, he found himself heading south where the
surf was substantially bigger. The wave eventually
swallowed him up and spit him out into a rip current
that sucked him out past the break.
“I had to make a decision,” Seth recalls.
“I had no board and I was drifting farther
south towards bigger surf. Do I swim north against
the current until I find a spot that is safer to
go in, which could take an hour, or do I just swim
in and take a few on the head?”
Not having the energy to swim against a current
for an hour, Seth decided to swim in.
“I took a few set waves on the head. It wasn’t
good.”
As a surfer that craves big waves it is inevitable
that Seth places himself in harm’s way from
time to time. But having spent the last twenty years
as a lifeguard, he has spent much more time getting
other people out of harm’s way. Being a lifeguard
has had its impact on his surfing life. Seth works
four days on and three days off, which gives him
a long weekend to find good surf. But even when
he is on Duty, Seth is allotted 45 minutes a day
to exercise, which he most often devotes to surfing.
Between days off and exercise time Seth estimates
that he surfs 5 or 6 days a week. In addition to
giving Seth ample surfing time, being a lifeguard
has kept him in great physical shape.
Being a surfer, on the other hand, has had a much
bigger impact on his career as a lifeguard, primarily
for one reason: rip currents. Learning about rip
currents is an important part of learning to surf,
especially in the South Bay, beach breaks where
the rips can provide essential express-lanes out
past breaking waves. For this reason most experienced
surfers know a great deal about rip currents. The
non-surfing, recreational beach user, however, is
a lot less likely to be as well informed. Ask them
what a rip is and they’ll likely give you
a slightly puzzled look, thinking you’ve forgotten
part of your first grade vocabulary.
This ignorance of rips is the cause of a great deal
of harm annually. The United States Lifesaving Association
estimates that 80% of all ocean rescues are due
to rip currents. Furthermore, the USLA estimates
that rip currents cause over 100 deaths per year.
Given the danger that rip currents pose to swimmers,
people with a great deal of knowledge and experience
with rip currents, such as surfers, tend to make
the best lifeguards.
“About 50% of [South Bay] lifeguards surf
and they are the best ones in the water,”
Seth says. “They’re not necessarily
the best lifeguards, but they are the best in the
water.”
In Seth’s career as a lifeguard he has made
many rescues. Last spring he helped rescue two Carson
High School football players who were caught in
rip current and were drowning underneath the Manhattan
Beach Pier. With the aid of a Jet Ski, or personal
water craft (PWC), he evacuated seven exhausted
surfers from large surf in a single day. He rescued
a kite surfer that was blown out to sea after flying
his surf kite just a few feet away from the water
on a day with triple-overhead surf and 20-knot winds
blowing offshore. He’s even rescued a drowning
sea lion.
Of all his rescues, however, there is one that stands
out as the most memorable. In 2003 Seth was awarded
the Valor Award by the Los Angeles County Fire Department,
Lifeguard Division. The Valor Award is presented
to lifeguards that have exhibited courage above
and beyond the call of duty and risked their own
lives by putting themselves in extreme personal
risk.
In November of 2002 there were a series of early
high tides and large surf that ripped the South
Bay beaches apart, resulting in deep holes and massive
sand bars. The combination of the uneven bottom
and heavy swells during the winter of 2003 resulted
in three months of dangerous conditions. The rescue
for which Seth was recognized occurred at 45th street
in Manhattan Beach on a particularly big day in
January of 2003. The rocks are normally behined
at least 20 yards of beach giving easy access to
the water. But because of the early high tides and
big swell the water reached the bike path where
the rocks end. Seth was on duty when he saw a pair
of struggling surfers battling a rip tide, dangerously
close to the 45th rocks. Recognizing that the two
were in serious trouble, Seth headed out with a
paddleboard. He reached the first of the pair who
turned out to be the sister of the other surfer.
She seemed to be okay so Seth took her to the closest
rip and sent her out past the breaking waves. Her
brother, on the other hand, was in much worse shape.
The large waves were pushing the young surfer towards
large rocks lining the bike path. The situation
was life threatening for anybody in the surfer’s
position. Realizing that he was putting his own
life at risk Seth made his way to the surfer. After
telling him to ditch his board and grab onto the
paddleboard, Seth had to paddle out towards the
waves to avoid being sent into the rocks. This proved
to be much more difficult than he anticipated. The
waves were huge and were breaking dangerously close
to them and the rocks. After struggling to get through
the breaking water, Seth felt that his life was
in immediate danger. He contemplated ditching the
paddleboard for his own safety, but instead persevered
and charged the oncoming waves. With the added weight
of the surfer Seth narrowly missed being sent over
the falls and into the rocks, barely popping out
the back to safety. He was then able to get the
surfer and later his sister to safety.
“Later when I talked to some bystanders that
saw the whole thing, they all thought I was a goner,”
Seth recalls. “There was a good chance I was
going to end up in the rocks.”
Despite his commitment to lifeguarding and obsession
with surfing there is one thing in Seth’s
life that trumps all others: Family. Seth has been
married for eight years to his wife Kristi, and
together they have two daughters, Megan, 4, and
Emily, 6.
“He’s a full-blown family man,”
says friend Greg Lee. “There’s a saying
among certain surfers in our generation. Work, surf,
family. Those are the things that are most important.
Tom embodies that to a tee more than anybody I know.”
Given Seth’s passion for surfing and family
it’s natural to expect him to want to combine
the two. He’s tried to pass on his love for
surfing to his daughter, Megan. On a summer day
at Manhattan Beach, Seth took Megan out on the paddleboard.
“We caught this perfect waist high wave,”
Seth said. “We both got up and turned into
it perfectly.” The two of them road the wave
in, together, a father sharing two of his life’s
greatest loves with one another. “I’m
thinking, ‘This is the greatest moment of
my life!’ I’m surfing with my daughter
and she’s loving it!” They ride the
wave in and eventually cruise up to shore, beaching
the board. Megan quickly jumps off the board and
runs away from her dad. Seth yells to her, “Megan,
where are you going? What’s wrong? Didn’t
you have fun?” She stops, turns around and
says, “I’m going to build a sand castle.”
When recounting the story, Seth just smiles. “She
doesn’t have the same passion for it as I
do. Not yet anyway.”
Interview by Braden Soper
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