2 weeks ago | Updated 3 days ago
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AMATEURS
Now over a half-century old, the Eastern Surfing Association — the largest amateur surfing organization in the United States — continues to summon the coast’s top ams and associated dad-bods to Jennette’s Pier, Nags Head, NC, for their marquee event, the Eastern Surfing Championships, September 16th-22nd. Aside from a week’s worth of heats for (gasp!) 26 divisions, ESA Executive Director Michelle Sommers and her trusted army of volunteers have a plethora of sideshow attractions planned, including a screening of Andy Irons: Kissed By God on the 18th. More here.
BELMAR PRO
New Jersey’s longest-running and most-prestigious pro event posts up between 16th and 18th Avenue in Belmar, September 7th-9th. The Monster Belmar Pro comes without the WSL points of years past, but with the undying support of Eastern Lines and a $20,000 prize purse to be distributed amongst the Pro Men, Pro Women, Pro Longboard, Pro Masters and Pro Legends competitors. There will also be live music on the beach, surfboard raffles, ragers galore and the chance to lose to South Jersey stud Rob Kelly, who won last year’s event in pumping surf. More here.
COLD FRONTS
Even if the developing El Nino event squashes tropical activity entirely, September and October are still, climatologically speaking, the best months to be a surfer on the East Coast. A lot of that, believe it or not, is due to the increasing frequency of windswells from continental frontal action, which if we’re being honest, usually offers better surf than the named storms anyway. And less damage.
DREDGE-AND-FILL
All that epic surf on the Outer Banks last fall wasn’t merely the result of the nonstop swell train, but also the extensive beach nourishment that had gone on all summer. The sometimes controversial, often necessary coastal practice typically destroys certain sandbars while spawning others, and while dredging/beach filling has ceased on the OBX until Spring 2019, some of the more popular beachbreaks in New Jersey, New York and South Carolina will do their time in the hourglass this fall. More here.
Watch: Sandbars shift on the Lincoln Blvd, Long Island and The Washout, South Carolina cams.
EL NINO
El Nino is a term we’ve come to associate with pumping surf on the East Coast, even if we don’t know what it means. “As we hit the peak point of the year for action in the tropics, the anticipated return of El Nino already appears to be negatively affecting our surf,” laments Surfline’s Florida-based Forecaster/Weather Editorial Program Lead, Charlie Hutcherson. “We’re seeing signals in the tropics that ring true of El Nino hindering tropical development, so there’s not many positives for the tropics to deliver an epic fall.” More here.
FLORIDA SURF FILM FESTIVAL
Florida Surf Film Festival founding fathers, Kevin Miller and John Brooks, will toast yet another successful year of quarterly screenings at their flagship event, November 9th-10th, at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, and bring their long-winded mission — “to invigorate surf culture and artistic appreciation by exhibiting contemporary documentary films with surfing as a focus from artists far and wide and operate featured-artist workshops in journalism, photography, and filmmaking — to its logical zenith. More here.
GULF COAST
“Outside of South Florida, no region suffers through the summer slump like the Gulf,” insists Charlie Hutcherson. “The tropics are typically the only saving grace for these southern surfing states in summer, and with subpar tropical activity forecast, fall can’t come soon enough for Gulfers. A pending El Nino might perk up the locals, demoralized by the long, flat summer and toxic Red Tide in Southwest Florida, but telltale cold fronts are no guarantee during a weak, late-in-the-year El Nino. Look for a full East Coast Outlook this fall with more on El Nino’s anticipated impacts.”
HURRICANES
“The climatological peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season is fast approaching and we’re watching a couple things on the radar,” explains Florida-based Surfline Lead Forecaster, Mike Watson. “We know that tropical cyclones form in clusters of activity, and it is believed that the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a modulator of this. We’re heading into the most favorable phases of MJO at the moment, so it’s not all that surprising to see lows crop up on the models at the peak of the season. Much of the activity is likely to unfold over the next couple of weeks.”
View: Atlantic Awakens, Latest Tropical Details and Swell Forecast
ISLANDS
“Many of the Caribbean islands awake from their summer slumber each fall, thanks to more northerly swell activity from low pressure systems moving off the East Coast and through the North Atlantic,” explains North Carolina-based Surfline Forecaster, Rob Mistifer. “Rincon, Puerto Rico, averages flat surf from June through August before good surf typically resumes in September, October, and especially November. While the number of swells often increases during strong El Nino years, there are no guarantees this fall, considering the anticipated weak El Nino. The one major wildcard is the tropics, which compared to last year’s historical devastation look more benign this season.”
JETTY CLAM JAM
Having reached adolescence, the waiting period for the totally homegrown Long Beach Island mainstay, the 12th Annual Jetty Clam Jam, opens on September 22nd, but Jetty reserves the right to run the comp pretty much whenever they damn well please through November to insure quality surf. It’s all going down at 68th Street in Brant Beach, NJ, and as always, the team-oriented event will randomly pair the community’s most talented greenhorns with its most experienced fossils. “Surfers must be vetted,” Jetty officials assert, “and reign from the LBI region.” More here.
KING OF THE PEAK
Though it’s yet to be confirmed for Fall 2018, we have faith that ever-resourceful East Coast legend and longtime contest director, Matt Kechele, will find a way to pull it off. Last November, the Quiksilver King of the Peak returned to Sebastian Inlet following a five-year hiatus. Similarly, 38-year-old New Smyrna Beach surfer/shaper Aaron “Gorkin” Cormican returned to competition following his own half-decade competitive hiatus, completely obliterating the 76-man field to win 10 skins, his second King of the Peak crown and $2,550. The lesson? Whether we’re talking about First Peak or Gorkin or the world’s most popular skins event… It ain’t over ’til it’s over. More here.
LISA ANDERSEN
Making the bold leap from surf journalist to documentary filmmaker, Chas Smith’s fluff-less biopic chronicling the life of the Florida delinquent-turned-California runaway-turned-4x World Champion, Trouble: The Lisa Andersen Story, premiered at two of the Florida Surf Film Festival’s quarterly screenings this summer, and will likely make the rounds up and down the East Coast’s more intimate venues this fall. Stay tuned to Surfline for a full review of Trouble.
MARKS
Not even a year into her youngest-rookie-ever season, it’s safe to say that 16-year-old Floridian Caroline Marks is overachieving in the best way possible. She’s currently ranked #7 on the Women’s CT, nary a double-digit result, and having already won two QS6,000’s this year, is leading the Women’s QS by a healthy, 7,000-point margin. With fellow Brevard County native Kelly Slater announcing his retirement, Marks remains the only East Coaster holding it down in the bigs. Given her trajectory, we wouldn’t be surprised one bit if she were to seal the Rookie of the Year deal with her first CT victory this fall.
NEW ENGLAND
You’ve heard of it, right? American surfing’s last clandestine frontier, where an assortment of craggy, rocky headlands offers more thigh-burning pointbreaks and death-before-dishonor slabs than any local can count — and some of those dudes take blood oaths to protect their anonymity. But finding yourself behind such erratic continental weather en route to fickle windows of world-class surf is more likely to ruin any ambitious Northeast road trip than the given lack of local intel. A reliable vehicle and a few dependable contacts are more important than any well-thunk timetable.
OUTER BANKS PRO
The unofficial ignition switch to autumn on the East Coast, the WRV Outer Banks Pro is currently popping off at Nags Head’s decidedly green CPU, Jennette’s Pier, August 29th-September 2nd. While the comp isn’t seeing anything remotely resembling those same, all-time conditions competitors scored in 2017, this is still the last remaining East Coast event on the 2018 WSL Qualifying Series schedule; and therefore, a visceral exhibition of cutting-edge shredding like no other. Tubes or no tubes. More here.
Cam Rewind from the south side of Jennette’s Pier during the 2017 WRV Outer Banks Pro.
PUERTO RICO
Hurricane Season 2017 was brutal, if not devastating, for Puerto Rico, and a year later, locals are still feeling the aftershocks. Nevertheless, the APSPR 33rd Edition Corona Extra Pro Surfing Circuit will return to Middles, October 12th-14th, to keep the stoke flowing. Founded in 2001, the Association of Professional Surfing of Puerto Rico has since become the region’s governing pro surfing organization — their tour consisting of several events held at different spots along Puerto Rico’s northwestern coast, the points of which are tallied to determine the male and female champions of the circuit. All events feature live web streaming, but it’s best to watch from the beach, cold Corona in hand, as the island could use an autumnal injection of surf tourism. More here.
QS
We know it’s football season and all, but if East Coasters need someone to root for in the pro surfing leagues, they need look no higher than Evan Geiselman, who’s currently ranked #9 on the WSL Men’s Qualifying Series and entering the final long stretch on yet another CT qualification campaign. “Golden” started off his season with a win at the Florida Pro and has remained active enough through Oz, the Caribbean, South Africa and the Mainland USA. But now begins crunch time: those QS3,000 and 10,000’s red-flagging the schedule from Europe to Brazil to Hawaii — the ones the Top-34 guys don’t miss.
RED TIDE
Scientifically known as Karenia brevis, both this and toxic cyanobacteria have been poisoning Florida’s waters for nearly a year now. But heading into the prime fall surf season, the Sunshine State’s southernmost surfers are feeling particularly uneasy about their future. About 150 miles of Gulf of Mexico shoreline have already been affected by both phenomena, while on Florida’s East Coast, issues with cyanobacteria are more localized, but have had devastating effects on native wildlife and local businesses between Jupiter and Fort Pierce all the same. More here.
SURF EXPO
Contrary to popular belief, the Right Coast does have a surf industry; in fact, they have the largest and longest-running boardsports and beach resort lifestyle tradeshow in the world, Surf Expo, which returns to Orlando, FL, September 6th-8th. The Orange County Convention Center will be jam-packed with more than 2,500 booths of apparel and hardgoods, and will feature more special events, including fashion shows, annual awards ceremonies and gear demos, than you can shake an SUP paddle at. More here.
TIME
Like CJ Hobgood says, “If it looks good when you check it, you’re already too late.” With daylight hours dwindling as we move deeper into autumn, haste is imperative. Among the elements conspiring against surfers are that big ol’ swell-sapping continental shelf diminishing the juiciest, open-ocean vibrations; those nerve-racking sandbar shifts, miles upon miles of here-today-gone-tomorrow bathymetry; and the most violent, schizophrenic weather in the world to work around. Above all, there’s that old adage, literally applicable in this case: Time and tide wait for no man.
UNSOUND PRO
Celebrating a milestone 20th anniversary, New York’s largest and longest-running pro comp hits Long Beach on September 14-16th, after having undergone a lot of facelifts: from a grassroots pro/am, to a WQS 2-star, to a Junior Pro, to a Trials event for a CT, to a non-sanctioned cash comp offering solid prizemoney and, more often than not, solid surf. Which is probably why the Unsound Pro regularly draws top talent (like former champs-turned-CT guys Kolohe Andino and Keanu Asing), who often arrive en masse to mix it up with local sensations like Balaram Stack. More here.
VIDEO FORECASTS
Surfline drops ‘em twice weekly, without fail, for every region on the coast (yes, Georgia, even you), charismatically delivered by our wicked-smart squad of East Coast meteorologists. The bread and butter product for the team remains the Regional Forecasts, but these are rad, too, ‘cause you can digest all the info while fixing dings.
Surfline video forecast from the last time the tropics provided some surf, in early July. Look for Workweek and Weekend Outlook video forecasts every Monday and Thursday in your Regional Forecast.
WETSUITS
Surfers south of Jacksonville, FL, need not apply. For everyone else on the Eastern Seaboard, now’s the time to rubber up, if you haven’t already. “Water temperatures remain comfortable, even warm, through September on the East Coast,” explains Virginia-based Surfline Forecaster, Katie Spagnolo. “The month of October is usually when we start breaking out the wetsuits, especially in the Northeast. The closer we get to winter, the thicker the wetsuit. Water temperatures average in the low 50s for New England and the Mid-Atlantic in November, and by that point most surfers are back in boots and gloves.”
X-MAS
It’s never too early to go Christmas shopping for loved ones, and we urge you to take whatever wad of cash you’ve got saved to your friendly neighborhood surf shop before venturing anywhere else. These institutions, and the boardbuilders they support, are the backbone of our culture, and you could do far worse than spending your hard-earned dough on the people who suckered you into this lifestyle in the first place. And don’t whine about high prices. Any surf shop without a full-tilt, stoke-slinging Black Friday sale (Friday, November 23rd) is not a surf shop. It’s an online cart.
YOU!
Are you becoming increasingly disenchanted with Big Surf in all its big, stupid bigness as it belly-flops into a self-cannibalizing aggregate of hashtags and emojis, surf schools and GoPros, wavepools and drones, hydrofoils and motorcycles, unchecked megalomania and runaway consumerism? Do you resent that the gritty, simplistic dwelling you’d once recognized as your foster home, your portal to the counterculture, has evolved into a dystopian hipster shopping mall reeking of suburban privilege and social banality? Hey, we feel ya. Our advice? Fight through that shit and paddle out. Don’t forget, fall belongs to you, too.
ZANDER VENEZIA
A year ago this week, the season started off on the lowest of low notes, when 16-year-old Zander Venezia, one of Barbados’ most talented juniors, died while surfing a big swell at home. The year before, Barbados had lost another integral member of their tribe, Bill Thomson. Given Bill’s contributions to the competitive scene in the Caribbean, and with #LiveLikeZander transmissions going viral, the Bajan surf community welcomed the WSL back to their island via two major events — the Live Like Zander Junior Pro and the Thomo QS in Memory of Bill Thomson — at their marquee wave, Soup Bowl. At press time, both events are tentatively scheduled to continue on November 8th-11th. In the meantime, Live Like Zander.