The Printed Story

"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 with boogie boards-you just graduate to it," he explains, sounding for all the world like a Californian from Central Casting. "It' s more of a religion than a sport. Surfing is a natural experience of life and being in tune with the ocean."

Minutes before sunrise on a recent 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 five-hour session Juan hooks the wave of the day. It' s a set wave-the largest in a series-which 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 emerges ahead of the curl to carve a series of fast turns before the last section of the wave collapses onto the sand.

"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, just last month, opened Long Beach's newest surf shop, Unsound Surf.

Although Juan looks and sounds like a prototypical California surfer with his long blond hair and year-round tan, he is devoted to the East Coast surf scene, which has been growing 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. The overpopulation of some surf spots 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. The enforced breaks, he says "gives you time to take care of your priorities." Though perhaps not too much time, he adds. "Most of the time there' s at least a little bump,"

In addition to fickle weather, Long Beach surfers 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, an annual Pro Am contest held 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. All the elements were in place, from the phalanx of photographers to the 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, wet-suited competitors now hopped along waist-high waves in a desperate attempt to preserve momentum.

Nobody seemed to mind. The sun was out, clusters of bikinied girls dotted the sand, music blared from the competitors' tent and the stoke-that irrational enthusiasm for surfing-was in full effect.

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.' "

But the New York surf scene seems destined to overcome such cultural obstacles. As Dave Juan says, "If you've got enough stoke in you, you'll enjoy yourself no matter what."