Minutes before sunrise on a recent Thursday morning, Dave Juan and his buddy, Mike Salerno, paddle out over an unquiet sea. The nor'easter that has been raging for the past week has blown offshore, leaving perfect eight-foot-high waves in its wake. As the sun climbs over the Atlantic, Juan and Salerno work the shifting peaks, dropping down near-vertical wave faces and pulling into coffee-colored barrels. Late in the 5-hour session Juan hooks the wave of the day. It's a set wave -- the largest in a series -- and it begins to fold on itself as Juan springs to his feet. The lanky figure in the black rubber suit disappears for a moment behind a curtain of water and then emerges ahead of the curl to carve a series of fast turns before the last section of the wave collapses onto the sand with a hollow thump.

"It was bombing!" Juan exults after the session. "There were some sick pits." Juan started surfing at Laurelton Boulevard in Long Beach 12 years ago. Now 25, he has already won a New York State title and last month he opened Long Beach's newest surf shop, Unsound Surf.
Although he looks and sounds like a prototypical California surfer with his long blond hair and year-round tan, Juan is devoted to the East Coast surf scene, which has been growing here since the early 60s. After a few winters surfing on the West Coast, he can cite two good reasons to stay in New York. "Crowds and water quality," Juan says. Overpopulation of some breaks in California has led to a locals-only vibe that's nearly as unhealthy as the stuff that washes into the water after a hard rain. "Once it rains there, you can't go in the water. Dead cats floating by . . . and the plastic, the most plastic you've ever seen in your life."

Many surfers complain about the East Coast's frequent flat spells, but Juan takes them in stride. "It allows you to work," he says. "It gives you time to take care of your priorities. But most of the time there's always a little bump. If you've got enough stoke in you, you'll enjoy yourself no matter what."

In addition to fickle weather Long Beach surfers also have to contend with town ordinances that restrict surfing to the beaches at Lincoln and Laurelton Boulevards during the summer. Surfers looking to ride other Long Beach breaks (and avoid the $5 nonresident beach fee) should arrive well before the lifeguards set up their chairs at nine each morning.
At the fourth annual Beast of the East held last month at Lido Beach, the surf tribe met to compare notes. The contest drew over 100 amateur surfers from up and down the East Coast as well as 30 professional riders. Everything was there, from the phalanx of photographers on the beach to herd of surf-racked SUVs in the parking lot. Everything, that is, except the waves. Where a few days before, locals had tucked into peeling tubes, wetsuited competitors now hopped along waist-high walls in a desperate attempt to preserve momentum.
Nobody seemed to mind. The sun was out, splashes of bikinied girls dotted the sand, music blared from the competitors' tent and the stoke, that irrational enthusiasm for surfing, was in full effect.

"It all went pretty well," says Brian Walsh, manager of Lido Surf and Sport and a key organizer of the contest. "The waves were small, but those guys were still ripping."
"In the last two or three years Long Beach has become more of a surf town than anything," says Larry Herrick, who has been surfing here for nine of his 23 years. For him, surfing was just what you did in Long Beach. "The whole beach scene growing up ... boogie boards -- you just graduate to it," Herrick explains.

One of the top riders in the region, Herrick works as a lifeguard at Long Beach. Like other locals, Herrick sees surfing as something other than a pastime. "It's more of a religion than a sport," he says. "The feeling's not the same with other sports. Surfing is a natural experience of life and being in tune with the ocean."

For some New Yorkers that's a tough concept to grasp. "People definitely don't understand," Herrick says. "I've had a problem with that. Once surfing becomes a lifestyle it's like, 'C'mon grow up already.'"
Cultural differences aside, Herrick has at least one good reason to stay in New York. "I lived out in Cardiff (California)," Herrick recalls, "and I loved it there, but my girlfriend lives here."