Inside the California Surf Museum: 40 Years of the Boards and Stories That Shaped Surfing

In Oceanside, a few blocks inland from the pier at 312 Pier View Way, the California Surf Museum keeps surfing’s long memory. The museum says it has celebrated “the people, places and moments that have shaped surfing” since 1986, and in 2026 it marks its 40th year with a new main exhibit about the Hawaiians who carried surfing to the rest of the world.

From a restaurant alcove to a permanent home

According to the museum’s own history, it began in 1986 as a small set of surfboards and surf collectibles shown in an alcove of an Encinitas restaurant. Since 2009 it has been housed in its permanent home in Oceanside. The museum says it has showcased more than 100 rotating exhibits across six locations, and reports tens of thousands of visitors a year from more than 40 nations.

Surfriding: Hawaiian Royalty’s Gift to the World

The current headline exhibit tells “how a Princess, three Princes, a Duke and a Hawaiian Royal Minister’s grandson introduced surfing around the globe.” The museum’s exhibit page traces the story:

• 1885: three Hawaiian princes studying at St. Matthew’s Hall military school in San Mateo shaped redwood boards and rode the waves at Santa Cruz, which the museum calls the first official surfing in California.
• 1892: Princess Kaʻiulani, heir to the Hawaiian crown, rode waves at Brighton on England’s south coast while studying in England.
• 1907: George Freeth, described by the museum as the great-grandson of King Kalākaua’s minister, began public surfing demonstrations along the Southern California coast at the invitation of Henry Huntington.
• December 1914: Olympic champion Duke Kahanamoku’s visit to Australia, which the museum calls a pivotal moment for surfing there.

The boards in the exhibit are replicas made by Santa Cruz shaper Bob Pearson, who the museum says measured the originals at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Visit California’s media office and KPBS both reported the exhibit as the museum’s 40th-anniversary show.

Boards that tell the whole story

The museum’s Expanded Timeline of Surfboards walks visitors through the history of the board itself. Pieces listed in its collection features include a 1912 California alaia, a 1923 redwood plank, a 1930s redwood plywood-deck board, a 1940s Catalina hollow board, a paipo board that belonged to Esther Williams, and a 1950 Bob Simmons foam sandwich board.

Courageous Inspiration: Bethany Hamilton

The museum calls this exhibit “far and away the most popular” in its history. It displays the surfboard Bethany Hamilton was riding when a tiger shark took her left arm at Tunnels Beach on Kauaʻi on Halloween 2003, along with the two-piece swimsuit she wore, photographs, newspaper clippings and the documentary Heart of a Soul Surfer. The exhibit also tells of her return to surfing three weeks after the attack.

Science, stories and the archive

Other current displays cover wave science and swell direction, bodysurfing and handplanes, and the Plastic Fantastic surfboard company. Past exhibits listed on the museum’s archive include China Beach: Surfers, the Vietnam War, and the Healing Power of Wave-riding, the history of adaptive surfing, Hobie, Greg Noll, Eddie Aikau, Donald Takayama, Tom Morey and the Boogie board, and the 1966 World Championships. The museum says its archive holds more than 17,000 items, including photographs, magazines, oral histories, letters, diaries and scrapbooks. Each year it also runs the A. R. Gurrey Jr. Surf Photography Contest for California students in grades 6 to 12.

Plan a visit

The museum store and exhibit hall are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission listed on the museum’s site is $10 for adults; $8 for seniors 62+, military and students; and free for kids 11 and under and members. Contact: (760) 721-6876, csm@surfmuseum.org. Check the museum’s site before you go.

Story and illustration by Surfing Fukcs Crew. Illustration is original art, not a museum photo. Facts checked against the museum’s official pages and the sources below on Oct 30, 2026.