Surfing Sense

   Toss surfers off the waves at the world-class break at Turtle Cove in Montauk as a state official has advised? Forget it. Citing liability and "operational problems" inherent in the fact that surfers heading to the cove usually park in the state lot at the Montauk Point Lighthouse, which is just to the northeast, Edward E. Wankel, Deputy State Parks Commissioner, has asked the East Hampton Town Board to enact a surfing ban there. The town owns the shoreline at the cove.

   Although the board doesn't seem at all inclined toward doing so, at least two surfing attorneys have offered it free legal advice just in case. The state wouldn't be able to do more than ban surfboards from its parking lot, one says, and another argues that the unencumbered movement of surfboards - which are, after all, vessels - is guaranteed under Federal navigational law.

   At any rate, a ban at Turtle Cove wouldn't work. The Marine Corps tried for years, with no success, to keep surfers from Trestles, a fantastic break within Camp Pendleton in California. Cotton's Point was another California spot the Feds tried unsuccessfully to wall off, so that President Nixon, who had bought a house overlooking it, could have his privacy.

   There is no good reason, legal or otherwise, for the state to concern itself with surfers in Turtle Cove. They have coexisted with surfcasters there for years and have, as far as we know, raised no liability issues. Of a possible parking-lot ban, one wave-rider was heard to say last weekend: "All it would accomplish is to turn decent people into lawbreakers."

   Surfing is a freedom thing. Keeping surfers from good waves is like ordering flowers to turn away from the sun.