Waves of Nostalgia
By Bob Moseley
Photos courtesy of Dave Macri
With contributions by Mark Bernstein and Chris Way
The original pier in St. Augustine Beach was built in the late 1930s. It has stood proud in glassy lined up swells. On several occasions it has been rolled up and wiped out by powerful storms, then built new again.
Through the years, its grounds have been home to a carnival, arcade, skating rink, bowling alley, and several restaurants and bars. In the 1960s, those rickety planks embraced a youthful stoke to ride waves. Like Mayberry meets Malibu, the pier gave St. Augustine’s first generation of surfers a place to figure it all out and set the local standard for decades to come.
Terry Drozd grew up a young pier grom. In the mid to late 1950s, his family built the recently demolished Panama Hatties building on the opposite side of A1A from the pier. Back then it was a restaurant and bar called The Islander.
“I would go to work with my parents,” Drozd said. “As soon as I was able, I would slip across the street to the pier. I was there every day.” Drozd did a lot of fishing and whatever action the pier offered up that day. In the early 1960s there was only a handful of surfers in town. After Drozd saw a few guys riding waves it didn’t take him long to join the crew.
The pier had a great set up back then, Drozd recalled. “It was longer than it is today, and had a T section. At low tide it always broke on the outer bar beyond the end. It was a long wave,” he said. Swell direction didn’t matter as the peak held waves in the winter and summer. “But I always liked the North swells best because I am a goofy foot.”
Mark Bernstein owned Sun-N-Surf Shop at the pier for many years. “The left off the pier was a great wave,” Bernstein said. “Some days you could nose ride, get barreled, and hit the lip all on the same wave. I can remember Biddy Hunter and Bill Eicholz riding forever on the nose. A lot of the established guys surfed there. You didn’t paddle over until you were a bit older.”
Sun-n-Surf Shop evolved from a series of stores and buildings that included the old Bath House where Drozd rented boards as a kid. Bernstein’s father, Philip, was one of several people involved in the early years. “They put some boards up for sale and rent in the back room at first,”
Bernstein recalls. As surfing grew, it became a bigger part of the business. Bernstein bought the shop from his father in the early 1970s.
Like the pier itself, Sun-n-Surf became a home away from home for local surfers.
“Even if you surfed somewhere else,” Bernstein said, “you ended up back at the pier. Sometimes a bunch of us would spend the night in the shop so we could paddle out early in the morning. We would surf all day when the waves were good. If you knew the person working at Sea Hag’s on the pier, sometimes you could yell up and they would toss down a burger so you didn’t have to paddle in.”
“We would just hang out,” Drozd recalled. There was a lot of pranks going on. Many times, Bill Eicholz was the instigator. “We did stuff like the wallet on a string trick. I would hide under my VW van holding the string and Bill would be on the boardwalk with his camera. I would wait for his signal, then pull.
I will always remember the look on this one lady’s face. She was so mad!”
“It seems a bit silly maybe today,” he said. “Back then it was just stuff to do while we waited for the waves to get good. Bill Eicholz was definitely Wild Bill, but he could surf really well.”
For many years, the St. Augustine Jaycees ran a Fourth of July celebration at the pier. They featured crowd favorites like the greased pole climb, ice sitting, and bikini contest. Once surfing became popular, the Jaycees added a surf contest. As it grew, Bernstein and the shop became more involved as the main sponsor of the surfing event. The Jaycees’ celebration ended its run in the 1980s. The 51st edition of the Sun-n-Surf Fourth of July contest ran this past summer.
Over time the pier grew weary, buildings crumbled, and the bottom changed. Sometimes it was in chunks from Hurricanes Dora and David. Sometimes it was a nameless Nor’easter. Even on calm days, a pier is built to die. The ocean always wins.
“When I was a kid,” Drozd said, “you could step right off the boardwalk onto the sand. There was a long beach going for a few hundred yards. Once the sand was gone, though, the wave never really was the same.”
In the early 1980s, Sun-n-Surf Shop moved to Anastasia Boulevard because the building at the pier was deemed unsafe. The shop eventually moved to St. George Street where Bernstein operated it until the mid 1990s. As the pier scene began to fade, Vilano and Blowhole became the dominant spots in town.
It was the lessons learned and relationships made at the pier that helped local surfers regulate those breaks as the outside world became more fond of day tripping to St. Augustine for surf. Looking back at an era is a bit like remembering historic swells. One guy might have called it six foot; another might have said it was overhead. Waves become vapor after the ride ends. What’s left is a recollection, a feeling, and a smile that can only be shared with the people who were there.