On the water, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department helicopter hovered and boats zoomed toward surfers waiting for waves. On land, cop cars converged at the popular beach. Surfers wondered if another shark had attacked.

But it was another type of conflict — this one involving two generations of wave riders — that sent deputies rushing to Salt Creek on May 1.

In the days since, the incident involving a 14-year-old surfer and an adult who may or may not have splashed, dunked or attempted to spear the teen with his surfboard has sparked a heated online debate about surf etiquette and the sport’s unwritten rules — and about lack of respect from a younger generation and the heavy-handedness of longtime locals.

Life lessons, surf style

Most surfers know the long existing rules of their sport: Never burn or drop in on a wave already taken by a longtime local; wait your turn in the line-up, show respect to the elders, earn your spot.

Mess up and you can expect to get dirty looks, splashed, yelled at, shunned from the surf spot, or your board broken. In extreme cases — in an earlier generation — a surfer might even wind up on the wrong end of a beating.

It’s unknown where and when exactly the rules of the water started. In the 1920s, the early days of surfing on the mainland, everyone shared waves and it wasn’t uncommon to be riding with four or five others.

Perhaps it was the explosion of the sport in the 1960s, when Hollywood films like “Gidget” sent droves of mostly young people into the waves, that Southern California beaches started to see extreme crowding and chaos in the line-ups. This, in turn, created a need for structure. Dropping in on someone could, at the very least, mess up their ride; at worst it could be dangerous for both surfers and others in the water near them.

Basic surf etiquette spans surf breaks around the world, from Hawaii to Australia’s coast and, locally, from the South Bay through Orange County. The rules are enforced most strictly at high-demand, high-performance breaks, places like Malibu, Huntington Beach Pier, West Newport and the Wedge, and Lower Trestles, to name a few.

Surfer Ryan Divel, like many other surfers, remembers the lessons he learned as a kid. The now 42-year-old would have never mouthed off to an “elder.” The Salt Creek beach local had to earn his spot.

“They were gnarly, they would chase you out of the water and tell you to go (to shore),” he said of the people who surfed Salt Creek in the late ’80s through the ’90s.

One time, he snaked a guy a few years older than him, a fellow surf-team member.

“He turned my surfboard over and punched a hole in it,” Divel said. “And he was my friend.”

If you wanted to surf Salt Creek, Divel said a particular local longboarder would run you over as part of an unofficial initiation.

“I have a dozen friends who went through the same thing,” Divel said. “You caught your waves, you performed on them, you paid your dues and you kept the beach clean. It was through hard work and perseverance that you rode up the ladder. Then you were slowly accepted by the pack.

“You sat on the outside until you earned your spot.”

Such encounters taught Divel, and others of his generation life lessons, something that, in his view, isn’t happening for young surfers today. Divel and some other Generation X (and older) surfers argue that the younger riders have a sense of entitlement, don’t hesitate to mouth off to older surfers, and take off on whatever waves they want with little regard for others.

“It needs to be re-iterated,” Divel said of the rules of the water.

“There’s now this whole generation… who don’t understand the process.”

That’s why he decided to post a report about the Salt Creek incident on social media. It generated hundreds of comments from surfers sharing the same frustration.

Some of those remarks centered around a 14-year-old surfer named London.

Snake waves or shake hands?

DeeDee Almida describes her son London as one of the nicest kids you could meet. At 14, he’s an up-and-coming surfer who loves to compete and isn’t more aggressive in the water than any other surf grom.

The family lived for a stint in Hawaii before moving to Orange County three years ago. Soon, London started entering surf contests.

Then, she said, other young surfers started blocking him from getting waves.

“That’s when the tension started to arise, when his results were coming in,” said Almida. “There was no reason other than jealousy.”

Others tell it a differently. London, some say, is disrespectful in the water, paddles around people to hog waves and mouths off to older surfers. DeeDee, they add, is an overzealous mom who fuels the fire when she screams at surfers on the sand.

Former pro surfer Ian Cairns, of Laguna Beach, was hired as London’s coach. He’s the first to admit that London is a “born hassler.”

Cairns said that the teen hasn’t been taught – just like hundreds of other young competitive kids – that there’s a difference between recreational and competitive surfing.

When you are in a competitive environment against your peers, take your gloves off, Cairns has told London. But when you’re in the recreational environment, you have to wait your turn and give some waves away.

Whether or not the teen has soaked in those words is debatable.

Cairns, who grew up in Australia, also learned the hard way. The guys who controlled the break where he grew up were the best surfers, and he found himself butting heads with them from time to time. But then they’d shake hands on the sand and, eventually, those same elders became Cairns’ mentors.

Today, he said, heavy-handed locals are ruling the waves.

“Our kids are entitled to learn the love in the ocean. Yes, they have to learn the hierarchy. But the hierarchy has been hijacked by thuggery,” Cairns said. “That’s not respect, that’s power by force.”

Heavy aggressors can range from longtime gangs, which recently made headline news at Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes because a group of locals hassled outsiders when they tried to surf there, to today’s use of the Internet for cyber-bullying and shaming on social media, Cairns said.

Cairns points out a hashtag #snakelondon that was created this month, noting that the word “snake” means taking waves from a surfer.

“Now you have a whole new dynamic with the internet and social media. If someone doesn’t like someone, they can broadcast it. Now, he’s target Number One in the surf break.

“The kid is less than 100 pounds and 14 years old, he needs mentoring, not abuse, not bullying, not cyber bulling, not a hashtag,” Cairns said.

“What I’m saying, we the elders need to step in and say ‘Hey everyone stop.’ Everyone meet on the beach, say your peace, everyone has a piece of the conflict. Everyone needs to apologize, shake hands and let’s just get surfing.”

Had someone not done that for Cairns, he might have lost his life.

In the 1970s, in Hawaii, Cairns was the brash Aussie at the center of a fight against locals who were starting to feel like outsiders in their own beaches, as surfers arrived from Australia and South Africa. The newcomers disrespected the Hawaiians who had grown up surfing in those waters

It got so bad that Cairns and others lives were threatened, a moment in surf history documented in surf magazines and the film “Bustin’ Down the Door” released in 2009.

“Eddie Aikau, one of the elders of the surfing community, stepped in and brokered a truce between Hawaiians, Australians and South Africans,” Cairns said. “He could have made it impossible for us.”

Cairns went on to become a world-champion surfer.

Respect lost on youth?

But this isn’t Hawaii. Divel and others argue that what they’re feeling isn’t hard-core localism; it’s frustration with one family who has had bad interactions at several surf spots and have upset too many people.

And while Divel doesn’t condone violence, he said the youngster is old enough to learn the rules of the water before things escalate.

“It’s in this kid’s best interest to learn this. If he wants to go surf the North Shore or do contests in Brazil, he’s going to get beat up or hurt in a lot of places. You can’t just call the cops on the North Shore to come save you. He needs to learn this sooner or later as a fact of life,” Divel said. “The lesson is better well taught now.”

Divel never expected his post about the Salt Creek incident to incite such a firestorm. Nearly 400 people — most of whom voiced the same frustration with today’s youth, some with claims specifically targeted at London’s lack of respect in the water — weighed in.

Well-known surfers like Christian Fletcher and big-wave surfer Rusty Long chimed in on the discussions. Surf photographer Kurt Steinmetz, of Huntington Beach, said he’s seen the teenager’s bad behavior first-hand in the water at amateur surf contests.

“It’s one thing to go out and be aggressive and catch waves. All the kids are like that. But when you go out and blatantly burn people, you’re not going to get a good reception,” he said. “They think they are the victims. In a nutshell, there’s absolutely no respect.”

For DeeDee Almida, the May 1 incident at Salt Creek was a breaking point. She said a man in the water put his hands on London and “assaulted London with the nose of his surfboard.” .

“I had no choice but to call the police,” she said. “What is a mom to do? I will not tolerate hands on, for whatever reason. That’s not part of my social structure. You’re not going to come around and wrangle my kids.”

According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department records, the call was reported as “assault with a deadly weapon.” No arrests were made.

Cairns is hoping at some point, the disputing parties can sit down at a table, discuss their issues, then bury it – just like Aikau did for him decades ago.

“We have to confront all of this stuff and find a solution and make every break friendly,” he said. “Such bad stuff happens when you have conflict like this, when there’s no end in sight. The end is sight is for everyone to let it go. That’s the end, then we all go surfing and have fun.”

Earlier this week, a gesture was made with hopes of squashing the surf squabbles.

London’s father issued an apology via social media, posted by Cairns, stating they were dropping any legal recourse surrounding the Salt Creek incident. He also said the issues surrounding his family have caused him to take a look in the mirror. London is a good kid with no negative intentions and he will be working hard to show this by his actions and engagement with others, he wrote.

“While I respectfully disagree with the idea that bullying is ever justified or that violence is merited as a response to “disrespect” or misbehavior, I can appreciate that others have a different view,” the statement reads. “It has been very hard to hear this negative feedback and I have run through the gamut of responses from defensive to anger to righteous indignation and finally to resolution that this must be made right.”