By Jake Howard / Surfer / January 11, 2025
One of the greatest surf lives ever lived, the legendary Mike Hynson has gracefully kicked out at the age of 82. Born in Crecent City, California, on June 28, 1942, Hynson will forever be tied to the breakout success of “The Endless Summer,” but the hit surf film hardly defined the man. A local hero, a hot-dog performer, a shaping genius, a cosmic adventurer, Hynson altered the sport and culture of surfing in an untold number of ways over his colorful time on this spinning blue orb.
The son of a Navy man, Hynson grew up ping-ponging between Hawaii and California before his family finally settled in Pacific Beach in the mid 1950s. And that’s when and where his life as a surfer began. Indoctrinated into the rebellious surf scene of San Diego in the late ’50s and early ‘60s, his early work with Gordon & Smith and the Red Fin design carved out a name for him as a top-flight board builder, while his antics with the Windansea Surf Club became the stuff of legend. Landing back in Hawaii in 1961, he was among the first class of surfers to begin to crack the code at Pipeline.
In 1963, filmmaker Bruce Brown approached Hynson about his interest in starring in his next project. Faced with the reality of being drafted into the Vietnam War or going on an expense-paid surf trip into the unknown, the decision was relatively easy. Alongside Seal Beach surfer Robert August, Hynson was among the first American surfers to explore the coasts of Africa, New Zealand and Tahiti. The film’s narrative was simple but captivating: a couple of friends chasing the summer around the world.
The perfect, reeling waves at Cape Saint Francis would come to be the film’s pinnacle moment, an embodiment of the spirit of the barefoot adventure. But for Hynson, the discovery was more an opportunity to get away from his director and co-star. By this point in the trip the relationships between the trio had become a bit contentious as Hynson was sneaking off, “smoking pot and taking bennies,” while Brown and August were considerably more strait-laced.
“Bruce and Robert slept until about 9:00 that morning. I was up at 5:00 when the sun came up,” Hynson remembers of the day they scored Caped Saint Francis. “We were right down at the basin of the point, and I looked up and could only see the backside of this break.”
“There were swells going by us and going into this cove. Every time I tried to get Bruce or Robert to look at it, they’d miss it. They did that about three times. I was really persistent, and Bruce got pissed at me. Then I saw three or four more waves and just went, ‘God damn!’ And so, I finally just told Bruce, ‘Take you and Robert and this fucking movie and shove it, I’m going down there!’ So, I picked up my board and walked down the beach.”
Never one to take well to being told what to do, Hynson’s trajectory took a complex turn after his rise to fame. In the late ’60s, he became associated with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, a group based in Laguna Beach known for its counterculture ethos and involvement in the psychedelic movement. The Brotherhood aimed to spread peace and enlightenment through the use of LSD, which they distributed widely. Hynson, with his free-spirited nature, found a sense of belonging within the group.
Hynson’s association with the Brotherhood, who was in close cahoots with “Pope of Dope” Timothy Leary, led to a period of turbulence in his life. While he embraced the Brotherhood’s ideals and adventurous lifestyle, it also brought him under the scrutiny of law enforcement. Despite the legal troubles and the chaotic environment of the time, Hynson continued to drive surfing ever forward through board design and innovation, most notably the down-rail concept, which helped usher in a new era in tube riding.
“Mike Hynson used to come over and he made boards for Reno and I to try too, but his early ones also had turned up rails in the nose. Then, I think it was in 1969 when I had a surfboard model with Hansen’s that we called the Lightening Bolt, that seemed to work okay,” recalled Gerry Lopez.
“Then all of a sudden Hynson showed up with a board that had down rails from nose to tail. We all looked at it and thought, ‘There’s no way, you’re just going to catch edges on that thing.’ But he had a little belly, round bottom, and he had tail rocker. He made a couple for Reno and I and we were both really impressed how well they worked. They worked way better than our own boards,” Lopez continued.
A vital and vibrant thread in the rich tapestry that is the surf world all the way up until the end, Hynson’s legacy is a blend of pop-star hero and countercultural rebellion. From his early days with the Windansea Surf Club, to his starring role in “The Endless Summer,” his involvement with the Brotherhood of Eternal Love and commitment to surfboard design, nobody ever did it like Hynson.
“Radical people do radical shit,” Herbie Fletcher once said.
Hynson was as radical as they come, and it was a beautiful ride from take-off to kick-out.
Editordude: UPDATE – see here for a long quote from Mike at the time of Bruce Brown’s death in 2017.
His one statement he made:
In late 63, I was running from the Vietnam war draft. When The Endless Summer came up, I was like: “I’m outta here, man.”
I saw “Endless Summer” while I was still at PLHS in a PB school auditorium. Bruce Brown personally narrated the film as it didn’t have its quality sound track yet.
My father took me to see it in 1965-66. I remember the surfing, of course, the music and the joke about the high price of gasoline in Italy—it was “AGIP”!
/s/ Chris Kennedy
Thanks for the memories.
Excellent film; saw it in Santa Monica. 63-64
I don’t remember endless summer at the Point Loma High School auditorium. But likely I was there. When I was at a Costa Rica surf camp 2 years ago, Robert August showed up and narrated the two Endless Summer movies, that was the highlight of my trip.
Steve Z, I don’t think it was shown at PLHS. I had to go to PB and Geoff Page saw it in Coronado.
Yes, I do remember seeing early surf films with director narration. Not sure it was endless summer.
Hey Frank, I was there at the Roxy with ya, too, but I was one of the little surf rats from Mission Beach School. You wouldn’t have noticed me! Rode my bike up the Boardwalk and stopped at Food Basket on Garnet & MB Blvd for movie treats beforehand…that I didn’t even eat because the movie was mesmerizing to this little surfer kid. Dreams of traveling the world searching for waves started that night!
And Hynson was running from the Draft and Viet Nam. Boy does that break the Hollywood stereotype of mindless surfer bum movies that was being put out one after another by the movie moguls. Some surfers could actually think. Imagine that!
By the time I was 13 my stepmom’s little brother had died in Viet Nam, and I had the cold realization that I would be next. When I was about to turn 18 I was absolutely freaking about that, too. Was trying to figure out how to get to Canada because I sure didn’t want to get drafted…
I have a copy of this flick on the movie shelf along with Endless Summer II. And a number of other VHS surf classics…alongside a bunch of old VHS skate classics (remember Skater Dater?) and a line of VHS snowboard flicks from the 80s.
Ahhhh, the old days when all we had to worry about is being hit with a cop’s club for pissing him off by being a longhair surfer with a bad attitude…
sealintheSelkirks
It wasn’t at the Roxy, it was at a PB school auditorium. Cheers
Well dang, must have been one of the other surf movies shown at the Roxy. So which surf flicks did I see at the Roxy I wonder? The whole pack of us MB surfer kids always showed up at these things. We rode bikes everywhere.
Bradshaws or Food Basket was always the place to stop for movie treats. For PBJH we’d head to the Thrifty’s 1 1/2 blocks east of Ingraham St. in PB Plaza (if I have that name correct?).
Mission Bay High did some movie nights, too, I think. And went to the movies at the Strand also when I staying with Granny K but that was more the mid-late 60s into the early 70s.
Granny C’s house was on Oliver St. in PB before they moved to Diamond St. by the mid- 60s, close to the Roxy on Cass. And I vaguely remember going to a school auditorium up in La Jolla for a couple, but I don’t remember whether it was the high school or at the jr. high that was just up the hill.
Is the La Paloma still there in North County? That was a great theater! I had to beg rides as I didn’t have a car but that was after 1970 I think.
Maybe it was Bruce Brown’s ‘Waterlogged’ which was probably the first surf movie I ever saw. Or was that in a school somewhere, too? I was riding a surf mat when that came out, just before I started standing up on a board. Ancient history gets somewhat blurred…and you were near adult then. Hosting surfing movies sure became popular back then. Trying to remember where I saw Gidget…nope, just don’t remember.
Oh hell, they were even showing surf movies at that little La Jolla independent theater that was at the bottom of Pearl St. on the west side of La Jolla Blvd after you made the turn south…remember that cool little theater? I saw a couple surf flicks there but that was in the very late 60s, maybe 1970.
PB Jr. High was my school Sept ’67-June 70, and I played stand-up bass viola in the school orchestra. Ugh. I really don’t remember all that much about the building even though I was in it quite often. Nothing sticks out in the memory.
So yep, I certainly mixed up memories on this one. Sorry Frank! Funny that I don’t have hardly any memories prior to being 6.5 years old in MB…
I can definitely say that I never once won a drawing for anything at the Saturday matinees as a kid, though!!
I look at old photographs from the family album when the parents were living at the bottom of Cape May for those early years and I don’t recognize anything the pictures show. Me on a motorcycle in an alley with the beach in the background? Nope! No memory of kindergarten at all, so I don’t even know if I went to OB Elementary before they divorced. Was that in 1959 or 1960? Everybody older that me is dead so I can’t ask.
Now you have me sitting here trying to sort out memories. Damn!
But those surf movies sure left their imprints on us, didn’t they? I even have a VHS copy of Five Summer Stories which of course is years later… I did pick up a dvd of Step Into Liquid, too.
sealintheSelkirks