Surfers at the Jersey Shore say their community has a culture of inclusiveness and respect, with a focus that extends beyond riding waves to environmental and charitable efforts. The surfing community is organized around the central tenet of mutual respect and bound together by its members’ common love of surfing, according to local wave riders.
Otto Weiler, who has been surfing for more than a decade, said respect is everything.
“There’s a big respect thing in the surfing culture,” Weiler, a Long Beach Island native, said. “Like, if you paddle out in places where you don’t live, you don’t cut people off. If someone is on a wave, you don’t drop in on them.”
Surfers also show high regard for the environment, according to Weiler.
“You’ll never see a surfer just litter on the beach,” he said.
Richard Lee, executive director of the Surfers’ Environmental Alliance (SEA), said the organization embodies surfers’ respect for the environment. The national nonprofit focuses on beach access, water quality and beach-replenishment issues in a bid to revitalize the ocean and preserve the surf breaks, or obstructions in the water that cause waves to break and help form waves that can be surfed.
In the surfing community, respect isn’t so much demanded as it is freely given, according to wave riders at the Jersey Shore. The SEA’s East Coast headquarters, located in Long Branch, has been instrumental in promoting beach-replenishment projects that preserve existing surf breaks in a number of towns, including Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach and Bradley Beach, Lee said. “They are all breaking within a month or two after the [replenishment] project is done,” he said. “In the past — in places like Sea Bright — after a project like that, the waves didn’t break for 15 years.”
The SEA also used to recognize people who have given the surfing community a larger voice. Such surfers are given the title of “kahuna,” indicating that they have the utmost respect of fellow surfers.
“The kahunas were the shamans and the tribe leaders in a great sense,” Lee said. “Surfers consider themselves a tribe and honor these guys that were the people who started surfing around here and promoted surfing around here.”
When a consensus is reached that one surfer is more skilled than the others, that person becomes a de facto kahuna in the eyes of the other surfers, Weiler said.
“If there’s one surfer that’s better than all the rest, he’s … kind of like head honcho. You show him respect,” he said.
However, Weiler added, respect isn’t so much demanded as it is freely given — a trait he attributes to surfers’ acceptance of the unpredictability of the ocean.
“The surfing culture is usually really friendly. The people are all relaxed and chill,” he said. “Surfers get used to not getting what they always want and going with nature. It’s almost how life is.”
Tyler White was first drawn to surfing as a child because he looked up to the local riders and the community they had built around the sport. While the surfing community is what initially attracted him to the ocean, it was the freedom of catching a wave and the inclusiveness of the culture that hooked him.
“Everyone is just so tight-knit and, no matter what, you always have those guys, and they always have your back,” White said. “You could have the worst day of your life, then go out there to surf and everyone is more than happy to [lend their support].”
Through surfing, the Long Beach Island native has developed a network of friends who have been more than just casual acquaintances — they’ve been a family, he said.
“The guy you connect with, the person surfing next to you, might be from [another town] and know a dope spot with amazing waves,” White said. “Just from surfing, you can find new spots all over the coast. You get your friends together and you go and find [surf breaks] together.”
Adam Scaramutz has only been surfing for about three years, but he said the other surfers welcomed him from his very first day.
“If you respect people who are locals, don’t cut anyone off or get in anyone’s way, everyone is friendly,” Scaramutz said. “Most people just try to help you out if they see that you’re trying. Nobody tries to ostracize you just because you’re a new guy.”
Scaramutz, who frequents Long Branch beaches, said other surfers are very accepting of new people if they are doing their best to get the hang of the sport.
“They just want to see that you’re making an effort,” he said. “They definitely give you respect if you try to go off the biggest wave, even if you don’t catch it.
“They just want to have a good time, and they know you’re doing the same thing as they are,” Scaramutz said. “We’ve all got this one thing in common, so you automatically connect at that level.”
Scaramutz said the surf culture could be summed up with one simple phrase, born purely of surfing vernacular: “Just shred the gnar, dude.”
The inclusiveness of the surfing community goes beyond finding new places to surf and welcoming new members, Lee said. The SEA co-sponsors the annual Beach Bash in Belmar for individuals and their families living with autism-spectrum disorders.
“Last year in Belmar, on the Sunday after Labor Day, we had almost 7,000 people on the beach,” he said.
During the event, more than 300 children with autism had the opportunity to surf, and even the most reluctant were thrilled by the end of the day, Lee said.
“It’s a really remarkable day. When the kids surf, some of them go out in the water, kicking and screaming … but they come back what we would call stoked,” he said.
“They’re talking and jabbering, and their parents — you know, I’ve heard the comment, ‘He hasn’t spoken in years,’” Lee said. “And [the kids] come out of the water with this grin on their face. It’s incredible.”
Respect and inclusiveness are hallmarks of the surfing community, and Lee said that makes him extremely proud to be part of it.
“It’s a sport that can last a lifetime,” he said.