Words by Jon Coen | Photos By Nick LaVecchia
We've all pondered the move. Trade in the 5/3 for warm winters, year-round parties, and consistent swell. But as I sat there, no one but the three of us, as far as we could see, I remembered why: why we deal with the frozen boots, the misfit status, and the dismal summer. It's for perfect autumn nights with you and two friends, and racy lines warping into the setting sun. This is the Northeast. Damn right.
Jersey - Off the parkway
It's firing again, and quite frankly, I don't know how this contest does it. Every October, we walk across the boardwalk on a chilly morning and find some crazy swell lashing Casino Pier. And every year, the boys are here in Seaside Heights – The Devil flies back from San Diego, Keenan's up from OC, Sam and Franky roll over from the Hammer house, and the rest of Jersey's elite show for the Smith Optics Garden State
Grudge Match.
Whether it's a harrowing nor'easter or a pumping south swell, it's always the same shades of gray; light gray skies in the wake of the storm, and dark gray walls that lurch up, turning darker and darker, to a menacing black, as they unload on the sand.
Winter has yet to choke us with its icy grip, but the boardwalk amusements are dormant, with only a few seedy arcades and bawdy pizza joints still open. It's really the perfect setting for this progressive, kill-or-be-killed event. The state's top rippers, who have all overcome the hurdles of being from New Jersey to get national exposure, all going for each other's throats like some demented brotherly brawl.
Casino Pier has always hosted events, from the Atlantic States Surfing Contest in 1966, to the ASP's Garden State Pro in 1989. But the Grudge Match is more than just another surf contest. It symbolizes New Jersey being in the grand scheme of surfing.
Florida, producing one world title contender after another, maintains its role as the talent farm of the East Coast. But the level of surfing in the Garden State, to which the Grudge Match is both cause and effect, is testament that a solid surf scene can form, despite the elements. NJ is the only state in the northeast (or the mid Atlantic, for that matter) that is developing serious professional surfing. And despite your stance on the competitive aspect, the growing scene pushes every surfer from Cape May to Sandy Hook.
A year later, and just a few clicks south, but in terms of New Jersey surfing, I'm as far from the Grudge Match as could be. In reality, I'm only a few miles away from Casino Pier. But the water's a deep blue, and a perfect temperature.
Instead of the pack of paid rippers, I'm goofing off with the guys I grew up with. A four to five-foot tropical swell is on the rise, bringing crystal lines to this random sandbar. Meanwhile, we're watching our anchored boat on the outside, wondering if one of these sets might toss it. It's actually pretty entertaining, so long as the beer and lunches are safe.
I'm supposed to be up at Manasquan hours ago, covering the Longboard Classic, but I'm blowing it off. I can go watch the finals tomorrow. The tide is coming in again, and we're the only surfers for miles.
There's no boardwalk here, no pizza stands, not even any houses.
This whole strip of barrier island is a protected State Park, and beside the occasional fisherman bumping down the beach in a buggy, there's no one around.
Here comes another set. I watch my friend stroke in late, but recover. He's not a Grudge Match contender, or even a competitive surfer, but he links a nice cutback, and works the wave across the inside. Even the average surfer in New Jersey is relatively experienced. If you can paddle against an eight-knot drift and navigate heavy closeouts in a 5/3, you can surf anywhere in the world.
This is one of those rare days of the year, where everything comes together. And even in a state with over eight million people, and hundreds of thousands of surfers, you can get out and enjoy a perfect day alone, with your winter suit still in a box with your snowboard boots.
To say New Jersey's surf heritage is rich is an understatement. Volumes could be written on Stretch Pohl's wooden surfboards in 1932, the Ocean City Surfing Association, Long Branch's legendary surf enclaves, the golden years of the Kosseff Surf Team, Cecil Lear and the burgeoning ESA, Bruce Springsteen sleeping on the floor of the Challenger factory in Neptune, Dickie Mez's lens at Jenks, Manasquan hellmen vs. a bitch named Gloria, surfers vs. lifeguards in a rumble at Ortely, Dean Randazzo on the WCT, right up to Localswell.com.
Even today, with its 127 miles of shore, each town remains unique, from funky Victorian neighborhoods, to stretches of inaccessible exclusive beaches, bump and grind niteclubs, pristine natural beaches and crime-infested ghettos; from cold PBR and hot crabs at Fish Stixx in Margate, to Lex Mex or Surf Taco, and conch fritters at the Sugar Shack in Highlands; from the young Kelly brothers in Ocean City to the legendary Duerr brothers in Manasquan, to X Gamer Sam Hammer and Mayor Doc Rossenblatt. It's all New Jersey and it all has character.
Long Island - Off the subway
Class just got out, and pockets of students are rolling south, down 79th St, from Public School 138. It's an inner city school, by any standards, just east of Brooklyn. They head past high-rise tenement buildings, down to the beach area, where any day of the year, there's mad talent running the b-ball court.
Just over the boardwalk is the namesake, Rockaway Beach, the sprawling jewel of the Queens waterfront.
Big hurricane swells or thrashing winter storms bring big barrels to the Big Apple. There has always existed a community of city surfers who balance the inconvenient, if not harrowing, urban lifestyle with riding waves. Navigating the subway through the urban jungle may not be surfing's traditional sand-under-your-feet esthetic, but for those who take the train back to the Village to see Sick of It All, or Mos Def, it's got its merits.
During a summer swell, you can meet Brazilians, South Africans, Japanese, Irish, Isreali, and Spanish surfers, all who have moved to the city to pursue something–a job, an art, a love– and continue to follow their passion, even in this unlikely setting.
Manhattan surfers, who made the drive from their Noho brownstones, share waves with scrappers from Brooklyn, who rode the subway in their wetsuits. Most of us gravitate to our little beach communities. But those who avoid NYC are missing out on unmatched stimulation of all five senses: food, art, sports, music, culture, all on within an overpriced cab ride. NYC has developed its own 'surf' scene as well, with huge industry happenings, activism, art shows, and events, even the very hip surf bar, Hurricane Hopefuls, in Brooklyn.
But New York is not simply the five boroughs. Head east on the L.I.E., and you'll find the same vibrant surfing communities that initiated the East Coast Surfing Championships in 1961. Today's New York surfers recognize their heritage, like the tradition of board building passed on from Charlie to son Tommy Bunger, in Babylon, the art of world-wanderer Tyler Bruer, Weimars and Harmons out East, watermen that have come to earn respect around the world, from 1976 East Coast Champ, Ricky Rassmussen to global big wave seeker, Will Skudin.
New York exhibits the two poles of the surfing spectrum, like nowhere in the world, from the gritty urban chaos to the serene bluffs giving way to Montauk's peeling rock reefbreaks. While "The End," as it is known, has long been a getaway for celebs, the surf culture here somehow lives in harmony with the NYC shakers and movers. It's the kind of place where world renown fashion photog, Bruce Weber gets inspiration from the real life surf community, where grass grows down to the rocky shoreline, where fishermen still hang onto the sea for existence, where Tony Caramonico's style is legendary, and the Hamptons 631 area code is a status symbol.
However, while Montauk's dreamy points have made cameo spreads in the international surf mags, the recent stars of the coast have been the South Shore's heavy beach breaks. Over the past several years, a series of hurricanes and retrograding lows have bought the likes of these Nassau County beaches into the cross hairs of the East Coast's best lensmen, turning the world on to Strong Island power. These images aren't the wrapping blue lines of the East End points, but thick bowls, spewing onto shallow sandbars. Photog, Mike Nelson, co-owner of Unsound Surf Shop has volumes of shots that show the real fury of New York, tunnels as dark as
NYC subways.
Long Beach was also the site of a landmark event for surfers all over the world last year. With local surfers rallying against the Army Corps of Engineers "one size fits all," beach replenishment plan, the town fathers voted down the ACOE project, which could have bought an end to those infamous bombs. "It was pretty simple," said Unsound's Dave Juan, of the hundreds of activists in the 'Save Our Surf' Campaign, "you either show up at the meetings, or you don't get waves."
Rhody - Over the bridge
The place is packed. And hot. The raucous mob is spilling over the barricade of The Area Venue. As Big World powers into their 9th song of the evening, frontman Sid Abruzzi is only instigating the chaos.
He was born in '51, the same year as Joey Ramone. But he's outlived Ramone, with far less merchandising plus four decades of charging vert coping and big waves. He's about to stage dive. He's not old. You're old because you can't keep up with him.
The Newport -Water Bro literally bleeds passion for the things he loves, embodying the counter cultural scene of New England. There aren't too many Sids left.
When did New England surfing change forever? Some might say it was 2003, when Hawaiian, Mark Healy, towed into a previously unridden Newport slab. Others contend that the footage of Point Judith's once-in-a-lifetime tropical love of the mid-1990's put it over the edge. Those of Sid's generation would go back as far as the development of the modern wetsuit.
Whatever you pinpoint, surfing in New England is far different than it was decades ago, and nowhere is this more evident than Rhode Island. Rhody is a yardstick, and I don't just mean, "the size of the state of Rhode Island," comparison people like to use. It's here that surfing has grown exponentially in the past few years.
I was at Matunuk. The picturesque beach with its shanty, stilted, bungalows is a gem of the East Coast. My brother, a longtime friend, my wife, and I were finishing the day with dinner at the iconic Ocean Mist, after catching an epic retrograding low.
"Is there a Dairy Queen around?" I asked the waitress.
"Yah, in New Jursey."
Ouch. Even the wait staff will vibe you.
As good as Rhody gets, few people are moving to 401 for the waves. While the small state has the kind of points, crags, reefs and slabs, so coveted on the East Coast, the swell needed to make these spots work are few and far between. While NJ beachbreaks can turn three-foot windchop into a worthwhile session, the northeast needs size and wave period to turn on.
The real swell events, outside of the dead of winter, seem to bring out the masses. Telegraphed hurricane swell bring packs of Providence professionals, Harvard undergrads, and Stowe ski instructors, who paddle out at Point Judith each September. The locals are protective. They're not big on URI students in the water, much less the "New Yak and New Jursey," plates in the lot at Matunuk. "Connecticuts" better have spare tire.
Nowhere does the term "town and country," exemplify one stretch of coast like Rhode Island. 'Town' is Newport, a high-dollar Victorian city, built around a classic New England seaport. The Cliff Walk, breaky at the Atlantic Grill, and Thames Street pubs make for a great social life, but aside from a few heart pounding days a year at the famed Newport big wave reef, (it rhymes with Snuggles - that's the only clue you get) the city doesn't get very good very often. But those days have built their own history.
'Country' is basically anything west of Narragansett Bay, where the colorful pumpkin-patch charm of an autumn day matches the allure of any tropical beach. 'Gansett is the surf epicenter, home to Warm Winds and Gansett Juice, with the high profile breaks like Town Beach. Today, Greg Levy and commercial fisherman, Jamie Risser, are proof that talent can grow between the cracks of the coldest sidewalks.
It's here that the pick-up truck boys are protective of their cobblestone reefs and points. The "Tokens Go Home," graffiti gives those who have to crossed the Clairborn Pell Bridge an idea of how welcome they are. Once sparse line-ups now see multiple heads jockeying for position, even with snow on the beach.
But there are still hidden gems, those twice-a-year spots protected from both wind and outsiders. You won't find them on a map, and you won't find them here. Go ask Sid.
Mass & Islands - North on Route 6. Back south to Nauset Light, then back north…
It was dumb luck really. Just kind of driving through this residential neighborhood, when they saw some spray. They investigated and found a
mysto overhead wave, peeling off the point.
This doesn't happen. They're a couple miles outside the city, and here's this wonderwave, with no one on it. But that's not the weird part. What was up with that water? Have you ever seen an ocean so blue? Well, sure, in a postcard from Bermuda, but this crazy aqua-teal-cerulean-blue, is so close to Boston that you can hear the "Lets Go Celtics," chants at the Garden.
The spots in and around Boston only work a few times a year. The size has to be right. The wind has to be north, and the swell window is about as wide as the gap between Bill Buckner's legs.
Most Mass surfing happens out on the Cape. Cape Cod is essentially one big nondescript spot, from Provincetown (the only place I've ever seen a rainbow-colored Miller Light neon) to the southern tip of the Cape National Seashore.
The Cape doesn't have points, jetties, reefs or piers. Connecticut might have better sets ups. The Cape has long stretches of beach, where the sand shifts day to day. Every tide can produce a new spot. Without any manmade or natural structures, the bottom contour is ever changing.
"So, where is the best place to surf?" asks a beginning surfer.
"You tell me," answers the clerk at The Boarding House. The Boarding House, like much of the Cape, is core. They don't offer surf lessons or rent boards. They sell gear to guys who go after every shifting sandbar like local hunters chase quail or whitetail deer.
Sailboats sit moored in little backbays, where still water reflects the changing leaves. Year-round life still revolves around the community. Homemade halfpipes exist deep in the woods. The Cape is beautiful, historic, and laid back. Predictable, it is not. Anyone with a few years of East Coast surfing experience can make an educated guess on the wind and the size of swell. Deciphering where the sand wound up after the last storm, is a different story. It's understandable that they wouldn't want tourists stumbling onto it. The old locals aren't just grumpy for no reason.
Very little of this coast is legally accessible by 4-wheel drive. Hence, a day of surfing involves more driving up Route 6 than driving down the line. Checking the surf from each parking lot is a sick joke. Luckily, the high dunes offer something of a vantage point. Those who are willing to hike down the beach are sometimes rewarded, but just as often frustrated. Those who turn the disappointment into motivation may get that sick barrel spread in Surfer Magazine, like local Gary Brooks…twenty years ago.
The local surfers, are by-in-large, an enterprising crew. They're carpenters, landscapers, or shellfishermen, They own their own businesses with the freedom to ditch the hammer, wacker, or lobster pot, when the Atlantic decides to turn on. Because, if you can't drop everything to get on those fleeting session, you'll be stuck at that intermediate phase forever.
Surfers like Josh Clements, of Orleans, represent a generation who have snagged enough Coast Guard Beach peaks and crashed on enough couches around the world to reach the next level. The Cape Cod Classic, just three years running, has already fostered progress. The talent level is still shy of New Jersey and New York pros, but the surf companies have yet to recognize them with real support. While Clements' counterparts two-hundred miles south are flown around on the company dime, he depends on his own landscaping business to fund the next tropical foray or pro-am contest.
You'll see them hanging by night at the Land Ho! or filling up at the Chocolate Sparrow, making wild predictions about the surf.
"Surfing Cape Cod is like getting a lap dance. You enjoy the build up. You get all excited. But, nothing really happens, except the worse case of blue balls," says charger/bartender, Dillon Murphy.
The New York Times doesn't write about coldwater surfing in Massachusetts. The Cape doesn't get the notoriety of Newport. There aren't any future WCT hotshots breeding in Lawrencetown. But the surfers here know that those good sandbars exist, and they're willing to sniff 'em out.
New Hammy - 10 minute Drive
Welcome to New Hampshire. Hampton Beach. Pick up some wax at Zapstix Surf Shop, right at the border. Power plant is buzzing. Over the Seabrook River. No Irocs cruising Main Beach today. In the summer, those things are everywhere, pumpin' bass. I can see some lines. Around the bend, stop in and see Doug E. Fresh at Cinnamon Rainbows. Should we check Plaice Cove? No one ever thinks to check behind those houses. Lets grab coffee at JB's Bagels. That place is gossip central. Ahh, The Wall, where everyone used to surf all day and sneak beers at night. Remember when Wardo surfed it? You want to check Cabana's? Well, some people call it Cabanas. I call it M.T.'s. Either way, it's a good break. Is that Casey Lockwood out there? That kid is getting good. Auto insurance, not mandatory. Rye on the Rocks. That's where they held the Icebreak finals back in 2002. All those outer reefs, with so many stories. Do you think anyone really surfs them? Jenness Beach. Man, we all learned to surf there. Straws looks fun. Seems like a good day for a longboard. Live Free or Die. Welcome to Maine. Yup, that's about it.
Maine - over the river and through the woods
No bars. Don't expect to get any cell phone service down at the beach. As if the engineers who placed cell phone towers were protective surfers, it seems like a handy form of crowd control. You're never going to hear that guy blabbing conditions to his buddies, "Dude, it looks pretty fun." Pause.
"Like head high, clean. Maybe a little bigger on set. You should get down here."
Although, come November, when the ocean could potentially turn to slush, who needs crowd control?
Maine has always been a destination of the escapist, as far back as spawning salmon. It's a place where rugged wave riders move, to get away from the crowds. So far, there have been four of them. Jersey gets cold. Nor Cal gets cold.
Maine is cold…in the summer. Surfing here demands a level of commitment that requires navigating icebergs off the drop.
"There have been days when the marsh would freeze at high tide, and ice chunks flow out the Ogunquit River as the tide drops. You're paddling out, seeing the birds standing on something in the water, and it's an iceberg as big as a car. People have been hit by them," says Mark Anastas, of Liquid Dreams Surf Shop.
Most of Maine's surf culture revolves around the Portland and York Beach areas. Surfers here, like anywhere in the world, usually work in the service industry, benefiting from the Southern Maine's seashore draw in summer and leaf peepers in autumn. They kick back at the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound for an authentic Maine meal or Inn on the Blues, for pints.
While surfing's popularity may be a recent phenomenon, tough individuals have been scoring for decades, and the fascination with the outdoors and nautical heritage is nothing new. LL Bean was founded here in 1912, making gear to keep outdoorsmen warm. But while the major surf manufacturers make some nice sweatshirts, most Maine surfers would opt for snowboard gear or Carharts. Liquid Dreams starts stocking winter gear in August. The York shop, with a
café attached, serves more hot soup and cocoa than wraps and smoothies,
by September.
It's one of the few places left in North America where you can enjoy city life, and ride uncrowded waves, just miles away. An hour after longboarding at Long Sands, you can be warming up next to the hearth at Flatbread in Old Port.
As the buggy bumps northward, past Popham Beach, the coast turns from rugged appeal to wilderness fascination. Facing due south, the fingers, headlands, and virtual archipelago have the potential to turn a coastal storm into a dream break. Potential is a funny word. Coastal storms don't happen everyday, and the dirt roads to access potential spots are frustrating. Perhaps in these days of overcrowded surf, this is a blessing.
Realistically, Maine-iacs need not worry about an influx of surfers on a quick escape from crowded pockets of the notheast. Getting to Maine's more outer reaches takes about as long as a trip to Central America. When most surfers ponder bareback sessions vs. frozen facial hair, they'll be booking Panama
before Portland. Good.
Submitted By
N'East Magazine on the 12th February 2007.
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