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 The North Carolina coast just begs for its residents to get a surfboard and ride those beautiful sandbar waves from the southern border of Virginia, where the Outer Banks begin, to the bustling beach towns to the south, Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, which have a long surf history from the early 1900s. For many years surf historians noted a letter sent in 1910 by Burke Bridges from Wrightsville Beach to Colliers Weekly, which had published an article on surfing, asking for dimensions of the Hawaiian style planks as the boards they tried making did not allow the riders to stand up.  They forwarded it to Alexander Hume Ford, known as a surfer and he had it published in the Hawaiian Gazette.  This piece of history became known as the first suggestion of surfing on the East Coast. Years later we came to find out that Emma Spreckels surfed in Asbury Park in 1888 and Alvin Keech, along with Ford, rode waves standing up in Queens, NY in 1909.  How ever the seed was planted, in 1928 Hawaiian entertainer Willie Kalama gave surfing demonstrations on the waves at Kitty Hawk Beach, NC and it would not be long before surfing would find a burgeoning population of North Carolinians who would find out they had some of the best waves the East Coast had to offer. By the late 1960s the little town of Buxton on the Outer Banks would be an epicenter of East Coast surfing.

Many of the first surfers to venture down to the Nags Head and Kitty Hawk area came from Virginia Beach, which had a well-established surf community dating back to even before the 1920s. Waterman like Tom Fearing and David Stick were making and selling surfboards from a shop in Kitty Hawk in the 1940s. Access to Hatteras Island was by Ferry until 1963 when the Bonner Bridge was built; soon after the floodgate would open to the pristine and beautiful waves of Hatteras Island.

In 1961 a small group of Hatteras Island teenagers got access to surfboards that may have come from the Navy crew who were stationed at the Buxton Naval Station. There are stories told that Californian naval recruits may have been some of the first surfers to catch waves under the watchful eye of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse that was built right on the beach in Buxton. The local high school boys included Johnny Connor, Buddy Hooper, Doug Meekins and John Ochs – last names that can be recognized today in the businesses that permeate this tiny sandbar that extends miles out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Ochs would cajole fellow Islander Wayne Fulcher into giving him his surfboard and Hooper would find an old beat-up board that his Uncle Bill Dillon had and soon this crew would become the original local surf riders who had all the perfect sandbars to themselves. Hooper and Connor would start making their own boards, selling them next door to the Connor Family Market, which still exists today in Buxton. After a Virginia Beach surf contest, legendary Floridian Dick Catri would take the long ride down to Buxton where he would connect with Buddy Hooper and give him a crash course on board building. It goes without saying that this group of young Hatteras surf pioneers would be the starting point for the explosion of surfers to come to ride the world class waves on that beautiful strip of Carolina sandbars.

Soon Hatteras Island would get transplants to set up shop to be close to the consistent surf that ran from Rodanthe to Hatteras Village, miles of sandbars each  having a unique personality and at times their own microclimates. The water temperature in Rodanthe could be 58 degrees and just 31 miles south it could be 70. That volatility would make for great surf opportunities depending on swell and wind direction. One of the first make his home on the Outer Banks was East Coast Hall of Famer Bob Holland, who would own a spot in the Buxton Lighthouse lineup for decades well into his late 70s. Moving to the Buxton area took a real commitment and sometimes the family could not handle the extreme weather. I, myself, made the attempt in the early 2000s and soon learned living there full time was not like going there on vacation.  By the early 70s surfers up and down the East Coast would make the pilgrimage to Hatteras Island while the Eastern Surfing Association would contribute to the visits when they held their first of decades of championships in Buxton in 1971.

In 1971 Barton Decker and some of his friends moved from Virginia to surf Hatteras and opened Hatteras Island Surf Shop in Waves, a village on Hatteras Island. What had originally started as a business that might last a few summers has turned into an iconic mainstay that has branched into multiple water sports under the direction of Barton’s son, Reider, who is a world class kiteboarder and foiler. Barton’s vision of the future in wind related sports placed him in the role of experimenting with different windsurfing and kite boarding equipment, putting him in the mix before anyone else locally.

In 1974 Ted James would makes his way up to Buxton and opened a surfboard building factory, an off shoot of his successful Fox Surf Shop in South Florida, moving to Hatteras full time for the waves and the fishing. After the 1974 U.S. Surfing Championship at Hatteras, Greg Loehr and Pete Dooley would set up a Natural Art Surfboards manufacturing business in the old Hatteras Ice House. Loehr’s performance on the hollow Lighthouse lefts would become the stuff of legend. Longtime business partner Scott Busbey would soon join Dooley and Loehr in Buxton at their surfboard factory. The harsh winters would take their toll on the Floridians and Loehr and Dooley would head back South but Busbey and his wife Carol would stay. In 1977 they would open The Natural Art Surf Shop in Buxton with Scott shaping boards and Carol designing and sewing her own clothing, which were a hit with the increasing tourist business on the island. Eventually Scott would shape his own designs under his “In The Eye” Surfboards label. Talking with Scott and Carol, they both spoke of the welcoming nature of the local inhabitants as long you are an active member of the community.

The real story of commitment are those surfers who once they got a taste of Hatteras Island surf, especially the Buxton groins, which were still in good shape in the 70s, decided to stay and make the beautiful island home. Surfers and shapers like Lynn Shell and future North Shore Hawaiian photographer Brian Bielmann were just two who made the Buxton area home for short stints. A crew who would first arrive in the 70s from different parts of the East Coast would eventually become full-time residents finding jobs in construction, restaurants and the fishing industry. Two like-minded individuals, Kevin McCabe and Russel Blackwood, would join the local crew of locals like Ray Gray, Thad and Jeffrey Midgett, Rodney Johnson and, of course, elder statesman Bob Holland.

Kevin McCabe right away jumped into the fabric of the community working at the legendary Jiminy Crickets sub shop along with Bielmann, located at the entrance to the National Seashore.  It wasn’t long before McCabe became a mainstay at the Lighthouse Jetty. A talented goofy foot with no fear, he would paddle past everyone to sit deepest at the groin often sitting so deep he was on the north side where people were going right. McCabe would go on chasing waves in Puerto Escondido for years and sailing a boat from the East Coast to Hawaii with his buddies Steve Curtis and Manny Albright. Today McCabe still lives in Buxton with his wife Kim running their successful hot sauce empire “Surf Dogs Hot Sauce.”  Having experienced it firsthand when that crew paddled out you were not to be fooled by their Southern Gentleman personas and Carolina accents.  If you wanted to get in the mix with them, they were more than happy to share waves if you did not blow your opportunity when it was your turn. Russel Blackwood, who moved to Buxton in 1975, took on the role of local chronicler of the surfing being done in between packing lefts at the groin and diving the local waters while earning a reputation as a talented underwater photographer.  It is through his documentation of the period that we have a record of some of the locals along with visiting photographers chasing the surf stars from up and down the East Coast.

Today, Buxton is a thriving community where you are expected to become part of the cultural fabric if you move there, and there is enthusiasm for its future as it is working to recover from years of neglect along the beachfront that saw the loss of  dozens of homes. Beach replenishment has started along with plans to rebuild the main groin at the Lighthouse beach. Buxton’s favorite son, Brett Barley, has brought newfound attention to the Outer Banks with his world class tube riding and his talents as a social media and YouTube content provider. The Outer Banks continues to be the place that East Coast surfers come to surf the best waves on the Right Coast. Locals like McCabe, Blackwood and his son, Wolfgang, the Deckers, and Barley along with the Busbeys will continue to keep the beauty of this community a vibrant part of East Coast surf culture.

The old cliche “there are no waves in New York” has been banished to the uninformed perspective of those who have not followed NY surf culture over the last 50 years. Today, New York has an iconic place in the world of surfing, however the early years from the beginning of surfing on the mainland U.S. in the twentieth century were virtually lost. Stories of how surfing came to the beaches of urban Brooklyn all the way East to the cobblestone points of Montauk have largely been handed down through the decades, some of them factual many of them made up or exaggerated, but the truth is more legendary than one can imagine.

Let’s work backwards from the present. New York’s coastline is 127 miles long; you have beaches in Brooklyn that you can reach by subway and on the ride east you pass barrier island sand spits that can produce surf comparable with the best beach breaks in the world, finally ending on the reefs and points surrounding Montauk. Today the skill levels of the surfers traversing these spots have produced world class athletes from top ranked world tour longboard competitors Chase Lieder and Chloe Coleman to favorite son Balaram Stack, who has earned the respect of surfers around the world with his ability to surf everything from two foot Rockaway Beach to giant surf in places like Tahiti’s Teahupo’o and Hawaii’s Pipeline. Stack is the first New York surfer to win the prestigious Pipeline Masters in 2022.

Will Skudin from Long Beach has continued the legacy of New York surfers following in the footsteps of pioneers like Rick Snyder, Don Eichin, Shelly Kane and Jack McShane, along with Billy Sautner from Rockaway who first charged the North Shore in the 60s. Kenny McIntyre, who owned The Beach House in Long Beach and was an all-star point guard at St. John’s had his photo published in International Surfing riding good sized Waimea Bay. Skudin’s performances in heavy surf over the last 20 years have earned him a reputation as one of the top big wave surfers in the world. His willingness to charge waves at places like Jaws, Mavericks, Nazare, and recently at massive Cortes Bank off San Diego has cemented his reputation as one of the best. Several young New York surfers like Kurt Rist and Pete Shaw are following in Skudin’s path, willing to push the limits in massive surf around the world.

Stack and Skudin follow in the legacy of whom many consider a pioneer of New York surfers who have garnered attention internationally, Rick Rasmussen. There were a number of top competitive surfers coming from New York in the 70s and 80s from big wave charger Eric Penny to East Coast Men’s Champion Mike Oppenheimer, but it was Rasmussen who burst onto the scene in 1974 winning the U.S. Championship in pumping surf in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, an event that received extensive coverage in Surfer and Surfing magazines, propelling Rasmussen’s name around the world.  He would go on to bring attention to the newly found surf spot G-Land on the island of Java in Indonesia, filmed for ABC TV’s “American Sportsman.” Rasmussen’s willingness to surf huge waves, specifically at Pipeline, opened the eyes of the surf world to the skill sets of this New York bred surfer. Sadly, Rasmussen would die in a drug deal gone bad in New York while he was still at his peak of surfing prowess.

New York surfers like Tony Caramanico from Montauk and Surfing Magazine publisher Bob Mignogna were just a couple New Yorkers who would add their New York influence on the ever-broadening surf culture of the 70s right to the present. Ultimately this group owes much to the pioneers of New York surfing, who rose from the buttoned-up environment of the 50s and 60s to light the fire that would create the rich surf culture that is present in today’s New York. A trio of visionaries, Bob Hawkins, John Hannon and Charlie Bunger, all East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame Inductees, would not only catch the surf bug but would also start a surfboard manufacturing boom that catered to the local explosions of young New Yorkers catching the surf stoke.

Bob Hawkins made his first surfboard in 1957 out of Styrofoam and by 1959 was manufacturing surfboards and headed to Hawaii where he had Pat Curran make him a 10’6 gun that he used to charge big Makaha. Hawkins would marry his wife Jeannie the following year, a pioneer woman’s surfer who won the first East Coast Championship at Gilgo Beach, and together they owned two surf shops on Long Island with Bob shaping boards throughout the 60s.

John “Jack” Hannon started surfing at the age of 11 in 1938 riding the bulky Tom Blake hollow boards that were commonly used by the local lifeguards for life saving purposes but were difficult to ride on the beach breaks of New York. After college and a stint working in Long Beach, California, he returned to New York in 1959 with a brand new Hobie and six surfboard blanks with plans to begin a career as a surfboard shaper. In 1961 he started Hannon Surfboards opening a shop in Great Neck, Long Island, NY that he would eventually close in 1969 after the short board era took over the surfing world. Hannon is often called the Father of New York surfing.

Charlie Bunger started shaping surfboards in 1961 for himself and the local kids; soon the demand for boards was so great that he moved to a 2000 square foot facility in 1962 and with his business partner Kevin Kelly started Bunger Surfboards.  Retail shops soon followed and the Bunger brand made its mark up and down the East Coast. Bunger team riders were legendary with Ed Fawess and Rick Rassmusen  among notable members. Today, the Bunger brand is still at the forefront of New York surfing with Charlie Jr. and brother Tommy still carrying on the traditions first established by their dad.

Now the stories of New York surfing pre 1950s start to get lost. Lifeguard surfers were the norm during the 30s and 40s with Tom Blake’s visit to Long Island in 1934 a footnote to the prevalence of Blake hollow boards being the board of choice during that era. Recently doing a lot of research through newspapers of that time, I have uncovered a rich history, and might I say a golden era of surfing that was lost for many reasons.  Primarily, I believe the two world wars took many of the young men off the beaches and into the Army or one of the other services. A number of these stories will change how we look at surf history on the mainland U.S.

The year is 1909.  Alexander Hume Ford, surfing proponent, founder of the Outrigger Canoe Club in Honolulu, HI and Hawaiian transplant from South Carolina is visiting New York City. He writes a letter to the Hawaiian Gazette describing an experience that changes how surfing came to the East Coast. Dated September 1909, Ford writes, “Alvin Keech from Hawaii is here, and invited me to come down to Edgemere L.I. and go out surfboard riding with him. This is the first time I have seen real surfboarding on the Atlantic Coast. Of course, I went, and Keech had two boards ready. We went out and caught several waves, getting a standing ride of perhaps two or three hundred feet, but that was great for the Atlantic. Keech daily astonishes the natives but even he cannot keep in the water in these latitudes more than half an hour at a time.” This letter from Ford flips the narrative on East Coast surfing, Alvin Keech a student from Franklin and Marshall was born in Hawaii, his father originally from York PA, Keech the next summer of 1910 would head to Atlantic City where he would give surfing demonstrations sometimes at night under spotlights a full two years before Duke would arrive after the 1912 Olympics.

The following year stories of local surfers would hit the newspapers; the first real prominent proponent was New York Fire Chief Edward Croker.  In a 1910 article in the Atlantic City Press, his surfing exploits are described, “Edward Croker, the Chief of the New York Fire Department, has gotten it into his head that he can ride one of those planks in the surf just as well as he can ride at breakneck speed in his automobile on a fire call.” Years later he would move to Long Beach, Long Island and build himself a concrete fireproof house.”

New York brought international surfers to the city, also.  In 1915 a surfer named George Walker from New South Wales, Australia came to stay at the Nassau Hotel in Long Beach. Walker is believed to be related to Tommy Walker, who surfed on a Hawaiian Surfboard in Manly, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, in 1909, five years before Duke arrived.  Notably, he made the June 28 edition of Brooklyn Eagle because he was giving surfing demonstrations and lessons to the young women of Long Island.

And lastly, but most importantly, Duke Kahanamoku’s arrival in 1918 for swimming demonstrations with his fellow Hawaiian Stubby Krueger coincides with a huge hurricane swell. Multiple papers report Duke riding the waves in front of the Castle Hotel for over a half mile. In an article in the Nov 17, 1918, San Francisco Bulletin, Krueger recounts the events of the day. “You should have seen us stage an exhibition at Castles by the Sea, the Long Island resort started by Vernon Castle. A big storm was on, and the lifeguards kept everyone out except we fellows from Honolulu. The Duke took a surfboard out to the last line of breakers, half a mile out and rode all the way in at express train speed.” Krueger would stay in New York throughput the 20s and his personal surfboard is photographed with Long Beach Local lifeguard Larry Burke in front of the boardwalk near the Olympia pool.

As you see by the plethora of stories about early New York surfing, it’s apparent that New York and much of the Northeast U.S. had a prominent role in the early proliferation of surfing on the mainland.

The 1960s was a blossoming era for surfing, especially on the East Coast. Rhode Island, with its craggy coastline that had numerous beach breaks and cobblestone points, was especially a hotbed for the young surfers who braved the chilly waters of New England. We know many of the pioneers of the sport including Peter “Peter Pan” Panagiotis from Narraganset, Howie “Goldie” Goldsmith, who many consider the godfather of Rhode Island surfing, and, of course, the legendary Sid Abbruzzi, who ushered in the radical changes to surfing that the early seventies brought to the sport. The one thing this trio had in common was they were all in the business of surfing and they were all men, but during this period there were a few extraordinary women who joined their male counterparts on the waves and in the bustling contest scene of 1960s Rhode Island. Female surfers who consistently competed locally and on the East Coast included Florence French, Liz Herd, Barbara Flynn Redgate, Betty Palmer, Karen Adams Howard and Sue Lloyd Hogan, who were among the many women who were a part of the vibrant Rhode Island surfing scene.

The West Coast manufacturers would recognize the growth of the sport and would often head back to take part in the local contest scene.  Hobie Alter, Dewey Weber and Larry Gordon of Gordon and Smith were just a few of West Coast’s heavy hitters to show up at major New England contests. Sixteen year-old Betty Palmer would win the 1966 Women’s Open Division at the New England Surfing Championship and have her picture in the local papers riding tandem with Hobie Alter. She would also win the tandem championship with her partner Charlie Thomas. Like many of the surfers of the era, the women would move on from the sport as they headed off to college or the workplace, however two of these pioneering women would continue to be active players in the local surf scene and beyond the beaches of Rhode Island. Karen Adams Howard and Sue Lloyd Hogan would head down different paths in the surf world, but each woman would cement their position as important influencers of the sport. As a side note, most of the photos for this article were provided by Adams whose documentation of the period give a wonderful perspective of the surf scene that was happening not just in  Rhode Island but up and down the East Coast.

Karen Adams Howard saw her first surfboard while visiting Riviera Beach, Florida, in 1964. That summer, she and her sister, Kathy, paid $50 for a blue foam Malibu at a sporting goods store in Providence, Rhode Island. Their father glassed the board, so it held up much better than the rest of the popular foam boards.  She rode her first wave at 2^nd Beach, Newport, Rhode Island. There were few surfers to mentor those new to the sport and certainly very few women. That first winter, Adams could not afford a wetsuit but the next winter she bought a suit, complete with a beaver tail. Gloves, boots and a hood eventually made the winter surfing more comfortable. The cold temperatures kept the number of surfers in the water to a minimum.

In 1966, Adams began entering surf contests. The network of women competitors was growing, and she traveled to contests from Maine to Long Island. That November, she moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, and spent the winter surfing in the warm waves of Juno Beach, Hobe Sound, Riviera Beach, Ft. Pierce and Cocoa Beach.  She returned to Rhode Island that summer and resumed her competitive surfing. Adams’ favorite memories are surfing contests with East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame inductee Sue Lloyd, Florence “Frenchie” French, Linda Peters and Liz Herd. Adams’ contest results landed her a spot on the Northeast’s Hobie Team with Dick Catri so impressed with her competitive skills he tried to steal her to join the powerful Florida Hobie Team.

Like so many who surfed in Newport, Adams spent the winter of 1968–69 in Cocoa Beach. At that time Mike Tabeling, Bruce Valluzzi, Claude Codgens, Gary Propper, and the McRoberts brothers were the ones to watch. 1967 through ‘69 were exciting times. Adams says, “Our generation experienced the extraordinary transition from longboards to short boards. That time forever changed what we rode and how we rode it.”

During the 60s, she used an inexpensive camera to capture the personality and the characters of Newport’s surfing community. Her photo albums also hold photos from contests in New England and Florida. She has only recently shared these images and hopes they have preserved the spirit of the time.

Adams and her husband moved to San Diego in 1971, and she has passed on the surfing tradition and spirit to her sons, Devon and Bret Howard. They have been surfing since grade school and both work in the surfing industry today. Karen’s son Devon is considered one of the top longboarders in the world. He was the Director of the WSL Longboard Tour and is currently with Channel Islands Surfboards in Product Development.

Sue Lloyd Hogan was a 2010 inductee into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame. Hogan was a dominating force in the mid-to-late 60s in the New England Contest scene.  She got her first surfboard in 1964, and it soon became apparent that she had the skill set to be a top-notch competitor. Hogan and Howard would consistently share the top of the podium at most contests. She was the only woman from New England invited to compete in the trials event in Puerto Rico to qualify for the 1968 World Surfing Championship. During the 60s Hogan was a member of the legendary Dick Catri Surfboards Hawaii team, the first female athlete from Rhode Island to be asked to join a nationally recognized surf brand.  When the short board revolution hit in the late 60s Hogan took a break from competitive surfing, but the competitive urge returned to her in the mid 70s, and she began competing again in 1976.  Hogan would go on to win the Women’s title in 1977 and ‘79 at the East Coast Surfing Championship in Buxton, North Carolina. She would finish 3rd at the U.S. Championship in Texas in 1977.  Hogan and her husband, Tom, opened Warm Winds Surf Shop in Narraganset, Rhode Island, creating a mainstay of the Rhode Island surf scene for decades.

Sue Lloyd Hogan and Karen Adams Howard’s surf histories are just two of the many stories that can be found about the pioneering women surfers of New England whose presence in the lineup helped to pave the way for the young women who followed in their big footsteps.

The year was 1912. Sam Reid, a boy of seven, stood on the beach and was amazed by the experience of seeing Olympic champion, Duke Kahanamoku put on a surfing display in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Reid was so excited he took his mother’s ironing board into the surf the next day to ride waves like his new-found hero, the Duke. He rode the ironing board for four years.

Reid was born in Philadelphia in 1905, though he would change his year of birth in the early ’20s for reasons that likely had to do with starting high school at an age when most young men were near graduation. William Reid, Sam’s father, was a direct descendent of naval hero Samuel Chester Reid, who designed the 1818 version of the American flag.

By 1910, William had deserted the family and moved to San Francisco. One can imagine how the beaches of Atlantic City would become a playground for a young fatherless boy, and how seeing the great Duke Kahanamoku would leave such a lasting impression that it would send Sam down a path that would change his entire life.

Sam and the rest of his family—mother and older sister, both named Lucy, and an older brother named William—lived in Atlantic City until 1919, at which point Sam was building his own surfboards and had likely developed into a seasoned young waterman.

By 1923, the family had moved to Santa Monica; Lucy and Sam both attend Santa Monica High—Sam as an 18-year-old sophomore. This is likely where the discrepancy in his birthdate comes from.

Around this time, Sam came into contact with Duke Kahanamoku again, this time on the beach in Santa Monica. Duke was working in Hollywood and, as Sam later wrote, any chance the Duke got he would go to the beach to swim and bodysurf next to Crystal Pier. Duke would amaze onlookers by swimming out further than anyone and riding waves back to the beach. Closer to shore, he would sometimes bodysurf with young children on his back.

At 19, still living with his mother and sister, Reid got a lifeguard job at the prestigious Santa Monica Swim Club. Duke was often a club guest, and Reid would shoot him questions about Hawaii. What was the surf like? Should he go? If so, could he get a job? Duke encouraged him: “You’re young,” Reid later wrote, quoting the Duke. “Go see my brothers David and Sam; tell them I said Aloha.”

Reid was 21 in December 1926 when he stepped off the SS Calawaii after it docked in Honolulu Harbor. Reid notes that this was a Hawaii without streetlights and only one big hotel, the Moana, doing business on the beach at Waikiki. It didn’t take Reid long to meet the Kahanamoku brothers and find a job at the soon-to-open Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Within a day of his arrival, Reid wasn’t just surfing with Duke’s brother David but riding Duke’s personal board.

Reid quickly assimilated into the everyday life of Waikiki. His job at the Royal Hawaiian was to give information about the Islands to guests, and when he was not surfing or swimming, he was immersed in the Bishop Museum library and archives. Reid was so taken with the history of Hawaii and the Hawaiian people, that he taught himself the rudiments of their beautiful and poetic language. On the beach in between surf sessions, David and Sam Kahanamoku taught Reid the history of Hawaiian surfing as they maintained their roles as the leaders of Hui Nalu, the beachfront surfing and paddling club founded by Duke in 1908. Reid himself would eventually be accepted into Hui Nalu—quite an accomplishment as most members were Hawaiian.

In September 1927, back in California, Sam Reid and Tom Blake, another transplant Santa Monica surfer and lifeguard, together made a little surf history. Reid and Blake drove up the coast to surf Malibu—something that had never been done. Reid later described the day: “Visualize if you can, a beautiful September day in California. The coast highway was then a two-lane road, dirt most of the way. Tom Blake had stopped by the Santa Monica Swimming Club to pick me up. In those days, cowboys with guns and rifles still rode the Malibu Ranch, and the gate at Las Flores Canyon had a “No Trespassing” sign on it. We took our 10-foot redwoods out of the Essex rumble seat and paddled the mile to a beautiful Crescent-shaped beach that didn’t have a footprint on it. No buildings and, of course, no pier! There was no audience but the seagulls.” Blake described the day in simpler terms: “The place was deserted except for seagulls and pelicans and the Rindge house. To be the first to ride it, I caught a 3-foot wave, and we played around in it for an hour or so, real exclusive surfing.” The history of Malibu will note that one of the first two surfers to ride the wave at the fabled point was from Wisconsin, the other from New Jersey.

For the next ten years, Reid traveled back and forth from Honolulu to Los Angeles. For two years, beginning in 1927, Reid lived in Palo Alto for part of the year, worked in San Francisco, and took classes at Stanford University. (Reid wouldn’t graduate from Stanford until after World War II, in his early 40s.)

In 1927, during a return visit to Hawaii, Reid traveled with the great Hawaiian surfer and Stanford swimmer Jack May. The two would be connected for many years both as members of Hui Nalu and as rivals in multiple swimming, paddling and surfing competitions. In the 1930 census, Reid is listed as a lodger with the May family at their home on 1445 Punahou Street in Honolulu.

Reid’s achievements in swimming and paddleboard racing are thoroughly documented in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He was Hawaiian surfboard champion in 1928 and 1932—although “surfboard” in this case is misleading, as the titles were for paddleboard races held in the Ala Wai Canal. Reid would win multiple swimming titles between 1928 to 1935.

By 1936, Reid had backed off competition but was still involved as a judge. He also became the aquatics coach for the Honolulu Athletic Association and continued to work for the Royal Hawaiian and as a lifeguard when back in California.

In 1940, Reid registered for the draft. Two years later he was a warrant boatswain in the Navy. As reported in the Los Ángeles Times, Reid received a Purple Heart in 1944 after his ship was torpedoed and sunk. The following year, while awaiting transfer to the DDS Reid—named after his great-grandfather Samuel Chester Reid—that ship was sunk in the Philippines with 103 men lost.

After the war, and after graduating from Stanford at age 42 with a degree in Political Science, Reid took a job doing promotional work for the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho.

Reid moved to Santa Cruz around 1950 and eventually became the city’s lifeguard chief. Records show that he was married in the early 1960s, but people who knew Reid in Santa Cruz believe that he lived alone. Still dividing his time between California and Hawaii, Reid found work with the Hawaiian Tourism Board. He also wrote articles and letters to the press. In 1955, Reid did a feature article for the Star-Bulletin titled “Surfing . . . Then and Now,” and here is where Reid’s reputation as a curmudgeon begins to take hold. “Surfing at Waikiki has become a dangerous, haphazard sport,” Reid wrote, “with seemingly no rules of conduct. The old strict code of surfing that I had been taught by the Kahanamokus was forgotten. What happened to the old boards, the old style of safe surfing?”

Reid continued in this manner while writing a trio of articles for Surfer magazine during the 1960s, in which he finds glory in the past and mostly criticizes the present; the title of his 1965 Surfer remembrance feature was “The Days of Great Boards and Real Watermen.”

In 1971, when Reid was 66, he wrote to the Star-Bulletin to address what he felt was a slight against Duke Kahanamoku by the organizers of the United States Surfing Championship, held annually at Huntington Beach. Duke had been the guest of honor at the US Championships in the previous decade. “Knowing Duke for 40 years, I know how much he must have suffered in having to watch the ‘Sport of Kings’ degenerate into exhibitionist tricks by modern midgets.” Huntington, Reid continued, picking up steam, “is a playground for awkward, off-balance, spreadeagled flat-footed squatters who inflate their egos by disappearing under an ugly mussel-encrusted concrete pier in a sea of discolored oil, toilet paper and other trash.”

Despite his often-pessimistic view of modern wave-riding, Sam Reid remained a fixture in the surf community of Santa Cruz. In previous decades—but well after foam boards had taken over the sport—Reid could be found paddling his heavy redwood plank into the lineup at Steamer Lane wearing wool bathing trunks and surfing in the style he was taught by his Hawaiian friends in the 1920s. In later years, when Reid could no longer surf, he still drove to the bluffs at the Lane every day in his 1938 Packard and was happy to share stories of the past with Duke and Tom Blake. He was also ready, at all times, to call out surfers who were not following the rules. On the cliff at Steamer Lane is a wooden plaque stating those rules erected by the city of Santa Cruz, quoting Reid. “First surfer up has the right of way. Paddle around the wave not through it. Hang on to your board. Help out other surfers.”

Reid died in his sleep, in 1978, at age 73. “It appeared [that he] died naturally in bed,” the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported, “with a dinner prepared Friday still on the table.” Reid would later have a place of honor in the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, and his private papers and photographs were donated to the UC Santa Cruz Library.

Although Sam Reid was a true pioneering figure in surfing, his story has mostly been lost to surf history. There are a few reasons for this. First, he mostly pursued his devotion to the sport by himself. Sailing to Hawaii alone in the mid-1920s is very different from arriving in pairs or groups, as surfers did in later decades. Second, unlike Tom Blake, who himself was very much a loner, Reid never turned surfing into a commercial enterprise. Riding waves was at the center of his life, but his career was filled with traditional nine-to-five pursuits. Third, Reid was constantly looking back to the past. Surfing and everything important about it, to Reid, is directly connected to Duke and Hawaii. Finally, Reid was cantankerous. Even among people who knew and liked him, Reid was described as ornery and a complainer. His writings are filled with criticism about the state of surfing and how young surfers are going about it the wrong way. In an early ’70s letter to good friend Tommy Zahn, Reid complains about the ‘dirty hippies” in Santa Cruz, and how the apartments in Santa Monica ruined the area.

Reid had no interest whatsoever in being part of the surf culture that developed in Southern California after the war. He was from New Jersey, and part of him seemed to always be in “outsider” mode. His roots weren’t set in a place in which he had personal experience, but in surfing itself, and in his belief that all things great in the sport flowed from Hawaii. Nothing mattered more to Sam Reid than the fact that he was embraced by Hawaiians.