Quick Take
The collapse of the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, one year ago Tuesday, inspired artist Laurel Bushman to create a comic looking at the event from the point of view of a pair of sea lions.
Laurel Bushman started surfing in Santa Cruz a couple years ago, but she’s always been an artist. So she created a webcomic called “Surf Lessons,” to document the process of learning to surf as an adult.
“Every time I go surfing I get inspired for a comic,” she said.
Looking back on Dec. 23, 2024, the day that the end of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf washed away, she remembers going to Pleasure Point to look at the huge waves at her regular 38th Avenue surf spot. A friend called to tell her that the wharf bathroom had washed up at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River, near the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
“We thought this must be some kind of fake news,” but it wasn’t, Bushman recalled. “It was a really strange day.”
So her comic imagines that weirdness from the point of view of a pair of sea lions, with the wreckage of the bathroom on a beach.
