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By, Holly Beck

Are there really any waves on the East Coast and what is it like to surf there? Unless you have actually had the experience, you probably don’t associate the East Coast with surf-able waves, except maybe in Florida. I didn’t either. Even after my boyfriend, who is from New Jersey, showed me photos of seemingly perfect tubes that he swore were taken in his hometown, I refused to believe that it happened very often. "Every coast has to get waves once in a while on the perfect swell," I argued, "but the waves don’t get like very often…do they?" This August, I found out for myself.

Every year there is a WQS contest in Virginia Beach. Since my boyfriend, John, has been looking for an excuse to make a trip home and introduce me to his friends, we decided to go to the East Coast for several weeks. We would stay at his sister’s beach house on the Jersey Shore and drive down to the contest, maybe stopping somewhere else to surf along the way. I was excited to be going on a surf trip that didn’t require a passport, a painfully long plane ride, or speaking another language. John was excited to prove to me that the East Coast has legitimate surf.

Compared to surfers in So. Cal., wave riders in New Jersey form a much tighter tribe because there aren’t as many. I was really surprised by the lack of surfers. We were there during the peak season, the water was warm, and nearly the entire beach was blackballed, or designated a "no surfing area" as they call it, and still, the peaks where surfing was permitted were not as crowded as one would expect.

The level of surfing ability displayed is also different from the West Coast. While several notable pros including Sam Hammer, Matt Keenan, Dean Randazzo, and Jamie DeWitt all come from Jersey, they are flashes of starlight in an otherwise dim sky. During my stay in Lavallette, NJ, I was unimpressed by the quality of surfers. Aside from a few local rippers like John Anderson, Jason Smith, and Jeb Kelly who were very exciting to watch, most were capable of standing, but adept at anything but marginal style and fluidity. But, surfing takes a higher level of commitment in New Jersey. During the winter months, surfers are forced to put on 5mm wetsuits, hoods, booties, gloves, and skip across the snow to ride frigid waves. This obviously cuts down on the number of year-round surfers.

Half way through the trip, we decided to gamble and drive 8 hours south to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. On that side of the States, the cable weather channel is much more accurate than any surf forecast. During the summer at ten minutes to the hour, every hour, surfers sit glued to their televisions closely watching the Tropical Update, hoping to see some clouds spinning in the Atlantic Ocean. A storm means there will be waves, otherwise the surf is flat. Seeing a dying hurricane off the coast, and a new tropical depression down south, we decided to take our chances and make the drive.

The next morning, we rolled out of our tent and walked over the sand dunes to check the surf. It was head high and a little closed out. After driving so far, we wanted to surf the best the area had to offer, so we drove to Rodanthe Pier. There were a few guys out and it looked a little better, so we joined them. The wind was blowing so hard offshore that it was difficult to stay on the wave. I kept getting blown right off. After only an hour we retreated to the restaurant on top of the pier for a thick sandwich and fries. After eating, we decided to let the food digest while watching the surf. Just as I cleared the top of the sand dune, I realized there wouldn’t be time for digestion. It was going off! The wind had calmed down and the swell was picking up. It was overhead and barrelling! We couldn’t sit there and just watch those waves coming in. A few minutes later, we were in the water. I couldn’t believe we were on the East Coast in North Carolina!! I had always thought that the waves in the Atlantic would be relatively weak. I was wrong. It reminded me of surfing Blacks in San Diego, but the waves were actually better and much more hollow! I will never make fun of East Coast surf again.

The surf in Virginia for the contest was predictably tiny. My heat had waves that were little more than knee-high and crashing right on the sand. After scoring on the Outer Banks, it didn’t seem to matter much. We had a lot of fun, hung out with some really cool people, and I answered my question. There are waves on the East Coast and it is really fun to surf there!