California Surf Museum

User Review:

• 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.
• The description was provided by Jeannette M. De Wyze