Photos: Psychedelic Surfing Descends on Orange County

Originally posted on SURFER | By Jake Howard | Last updated Jun 9, 2025 4:06 PM ET

"Surfing is the spiritual, aesthetic style of the liberated self," Harvard professor and LSD guru told SURFER Magazine in 1978.

"The danger of the vulgar surfer philosophy is that, 'Oh man, nothing is important - just kick back, wait for the wave, just hang out,'" he continued. "That's beautiful, and it's a step forward, but, in a sense, it is a dilettante situation. The next step is to create the future - to take responsibility for it. And that's what you're doing."

"You have taken the passive aspect of surfing, and you have made it into a cultural transmission form that's creating the reality of 100, 200, or 500,000 people," he surmised.

Just like author Thomas Wolfe, most of the surfers and psychedelic heads of the 1960s thought Leary was a kook. Including the Grateful Dead. Which brings us the 2025 Vissla Cosmic Creek Surf Festival at Salt Creek in Dana Point. A weekend of good vibes, good surfing and sunny beach days, my only criticism for longtime event director and love child Eric Diamond is that there was not a single Dead tunes on his carefully curated playlist.

Of course, that's a small, relatively insignificant detail. For the better part of three decades Diamond has thrown a hell of a party at his local beach. With the support of Paul Naude, Vinny De La Pena and the team at Vissla, this year's iteration of the iconic anti-contest was no different. A star-studded affair featuring legendary Aussie Cheyne Horan, style guru Brad Gerlach, East Coast native son Cam Richards (who was ripping and stayed to help cleanup after), and too many more to keep on listing, the waves pumped and a good time was had by all.

Forced to jump between vintage '70s single-fins and built-for-speed '80s twinnies, competitors never know what they're going to get at the Cosmic. And from the youngest groms to the most seasoned vets, just figuring the boards out is as much of a challenge as actually getting a score from the judges. And speaking of judges, there's no interference calls at the Cosmic because waves are better shared.

On day one of the affair surfboard wizard Donny Brink put up with me in the Vissla shaping trailer. Naude popped in from time to time and check on the status. And while the man is primarily known as an industry leader, spend a minute talking surfboards with him and it's no secret where is true passion lies. More coming on the single-fin blade we created. I can't wait to take it for a spin.

Until then, enjoy the photos and stay tuned!

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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