Windansea Beach
Palm-thatched surf shack built by hand and repeatedly rebuilt after storm waves tear it down.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Windansea Beach in San Diego opens with the surf shack that has died and come back at least three times, torn apart by storm waves and rebuilt by hand each time. It goes back to the summer of 1946, when Woody Ekstrom, Fred Kenyon and Don Okey cut eucalyptus poles from Scripps Hospital grounds and roofed them in palm fronds after Okey's wife asked for some shade for the kids, then threw a luau that grew rowdier every year after. You'll hear how the pattern of loss and rebuilding held through the decades that followed, carried on by a volunteer crew called Friends of Windansea. Stand back from the shack and look at the ropework holding the current thatch together.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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