localswell

It¹s probably not the best time of year to be singing the praises of
bennies or inlanders. By this point in the summer, we¹ve all had our fair
share of rude, preening a-holes, traffic jams and kook-filled shoulder-to-shoulder lineups. But there¹s one breed of inlander, whom I¹ve always thought deserves a lot more praise, a lot more props. They get no respect, but deserve tons.I’m talking about the inland dwelling surfer.In the hierarchy of hard core  they sit at the top. In the hierarchy of respect, they’re near the bottom. 

I’m not talking about bennies who emerge in May, flop around like broken-winged gulls for a few months and then fly back to Bergen County after Labor Day.

I’m talking about dedicated surfers, who are simply stuck living far from the ocean.  I’m talking about guys and maybe a few gals, who suffer long drives to get to the beach but still have enough stoke to keep doing it year after year. 

At one of my regular breaks, there are a handful of such guys, and their stories are ones of unrivaled dedication. There’s a guy who gets up at 4 am and drives from his home in Somerset County, surfs DP and then heads to work in Middlesex. There are mornings in March and February when I paddle out and he’s the first one there, the locals all still tucked in their beds. There’s another guy who lives in West Orange, drives down the night before he thinks a swell will arrive and sleeps in his van to catch it early. He somehow pulls this off with a wife and baby at home, too. It’s not just the domestic juggling and commute that make this tough. It’s just flat out tougher in the lineup when you¹re not a local. You could surf for 20 years like this and be one of the best rippers around, but when you paddle out, no one knows who you are.  In the xenophobic localized lineups, if you’re not local, you’re assumed to be a kook. Nobody’s gonna give you a break and you’re gonna have to fight strangers for waves – even if you’ve been surfing that same break for longer than they’ve been alive.

 I write about it, I guess, because I lived like this for a long time before I managed to settle in Monmouth County.  I remember what seems like a zillion pre-dawn drives from Middlesex and Hudson Counties in the pre-Internet surf report days, arriving at the beach only to find frigid blown out ankle slappers. Even after I’d been surfing the same break for 15 years, I’d paddle out and get looks like I was a stranger – because I was.

Thankfully, those days are long gone for me. But not for many. You seem them every swell, plying their cars across Route 195, down the Parkway, boards strapped to the roof as they cut through the predawn darkness, driven by a stoke that overcomes geography

So the next time you them pull up at your break, somebody you don’t recognize, don’t assume they’re some kook stranger. Give em a wave.  Give em some respect. They just might be more hard core than the locals.

Peace. BD.

*Note: this was first written in July, when the first sentence was more accurate than it is now, amid a flat spell.

You know,the surf sure has been pretty good around here lately. It’s been so good, in fact, that you might find yourself thinking that New Jersey is actually a good place to be a surfer. These swells we’re having now, like any good run of waves, can lull you into some sense that the Jersey Juice can be as sweet as whatever nectar ol’ Poseiden squeezes out in more exotic locales.  And then, you travel.  

And that is when you realize how much New Jersey surf sucks.

 It happens every time I travel. I get off the plane, sleepless, frenzied, in whatever surf trip destination I’ve chosen, and catch my first wave. And the first thing that always hits me is – wow. This is what it’s REALLY supposed to be like. Big waves. Long waves. Waves that hold up and peel and let you do things to them. Not just beachbreak sandbar waves that you mainly just outrun, but groundswells, waves you can live with for a while, play with, practice on, sit in barrels wide enough to lay out a picnic blanket and stop for lunch.

 I’m not saying that we should not be proud. Au contraire, Jersey surfers. Proud we should be. 

But what we in New Jersey should be proud of is not how good our surf gets. What we should be proud of is ourselves, how good we are despite it, and all how we surf on – despite of how truly bad it is here. It’s not just the finicky waves or our lack of reefs and points. It’s the crowds, the rat race, the soul-sucking lifestyle, the pollution, the beach badge laws, the cold, the flat spells, the all around suckitude of it all.

All of that is what creates the other main thought that pops into my head every time I’m sitting in a lineup in some other exotic locale.  And that’s how downright EASY it is to be a surfer in other places — places like Puerto Rico or California, or Carolina, or, or, you name it.  

Often when I’m there, I look around at the people in the water and wonder to myself: “how many of these people would still be in the water if they lived in Jersey?” 

Not many, I think.  And that’s why we should be proud. We should be proud that we surf through all the crap we surf through. 

 We should be proud every time we hear a California wuss call 55 degree water “cold.” We should be proud when people laugh at our bureaucratic beach badge laws, our lifeguard blackballs, our history of pollution. Our finicky surf, our hit and run swells, our wave-killing geography, our cold winters, our high property taxes and cost of living that keeps us working, working working when we should be surfing, surfing, surfing.  

But we surf through it all. And THAT - that spirit -  is the real Jersey Juice. It’s not in the water. It’s running through our veins, bro. It’s in us. It is us. Be proud of that.

  

Surfing will surprise you with every chance it gets. (And so will life for that matter). An escape, and a social activity, both at the same time. It’s duality, when you think about it, is seriously confounding. Something where the same person, in the same place, can find both things out about himself, and still be surrounded by friends.

Making that transition between groups of buddies can be precarious, but it’s manageable. It can take a while to find a group that meshes well together. There is always the coming and going of people before things feel like they’re “comfortable.” I got lucky, and, upon moving from Jersey to Florida, I found another bunch where contentment and enjoyment were plenty. But it was different. Adventurous, compelling, and doused with a ton of shit talking, but different.

When you relocate you ultimately have to know this going in. You’re never going to find individuals that become that first group of surf buddies. You grew up surfing together. You were a group of guys that experienced the same challenges in learning to surf during a point in life where days were entirely care free. Surfing made you who you all were together. That already all happened. You can’t experience that again.

Where do you go from there? You pushed each other to better yourselves. You saw one guy doing something cleaner or faster than you and you worked your butt off to be able to do the same thing. You were all in it together.
But out in the wilderness, everyone’s in it for themselves. Not in a bad way, necessarily. Not everyone at least.

Surfers can be extremely idiosyncratic, especially when it has anything to do with surfing. Tendencies in the water are already developed. My focus no being in a sense of skills, but how you act and react with others in the ocean. So the question begs to be asked: Do you continue those tendencies when faced with the opportunity of a new slate, or do you start anew?

When it comes down to it, it will be a blending of the two, to continue one’s development and progression in life. Because you’re never going to find that thing that presents the same opportunities, the same people, or the same experiences, especially like those of that first one. That’s something you usually leave it in the place you say you’re from.