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East vs. West

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Sharkbiscuit

Duke status
Aug 6, 2003
26,709
19,656
113
Jacksonville Beach
One-Off said:
East, ff the cold kept the crowds thin....but I've heard the NJ bois complain about crowds. Rhode Island?
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One time a few years back I checked some of the cams in New Jersey during a blizzard on a weekday in February and it was packed.

Trying to stick drops in jacking beachbreak in a 6mm sounds like a recipe for getting beat down, badly. I would expect user-friendly point waves to be mobbed if working.

I can think of some uncrowded scenarios in Rhode Island, but according to my calculations, if you can afford those scenarios, you can afford to spend the year travelling rural third world zones with way better surf and way fewer people.
 
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mundus

Duke status
Feb 26, 2018
37,318
16,371
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Sharkbiscuit said:
One time a few years back I checked some of the cams in New Jersey during a blizzard on a weekday in February and it was packed.

Trying to stick drops in jacking beachbreak in a 6mm sounds like a recipe for getting beat down, badly. I would expect user-friendly point waves to be mobbed if working.

I can think of some uncrowded scenarios in Rhode Island, but according to my calculations, if you can afford those scenarios, you can afford to spend the year travelling rural third world zones with way better surf and way fewer people.
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Only crowded where the cams are, you only have to surf in crowds if you want to in the winter.
 
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GromsDad

GromsDad

Duke status
Jan 21, 2014
54,824
16,694
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West of the Atlantic. East of the ICW.
One-Off said:
East, ff the cold kept the crowds thin....but I've heard the NJ bois complain about crowds. Rhode Island?
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I am not kidding when I say that the crowd issue is worse at the popular spots near my house when there are waves than Lowers. I've lived with and watched it get worse my whole life. Its reached the level of insanity. I can paddle out at Lowers and get my waves and not get frustrated. If you read the ocean and know how to operate in a crowd you're going to put yourself in position to get waves at Lowers. I actually find the crowd at Lowers to be orderly. Up until about 15 years ago things were fairly orderly in the lineups here too and then it just all went to hell with entitled inland assholes and a huge influx of kooks and aggros on longboards. There is no pecking order and everyone piles on top of each other. It is sooooooo frustrating.
 
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Joshua2415

Joshua2415

Tom Curren status
Jul 18, 2005
12,878
11,925
113
San Clemente
GromsDad said:
I am not kidding when I say that the crowd issue is worse at the popular spots near my house when there are waves than Lowers. I've lived with and watched it get worse my whole life. Its reached the level of insanity. I can paddle out at Lowers and get my waves and not get frustrated. If you read the ocean and know how to operate in a crowd you're going to put yourself in position to get waves at Lowers. I actually find the crowd at Lowers to be orderly. Up until about 15 years ago things were fairly orderly in the lineups here too and then it just all went to hell with entitled inland assholes and a huge influx of kooks and aggros on longboards. There is no pecking order and everyone piles on top of each other. It is sooooooo frustrating.
Click to expand...

:roflmao:
 
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potato-nator

Phil Edwards status
Nov 10, 2015
6,066
1,283
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GromsDad said:
There is no pecking order and everyone piles on top of each other. It is sooooooo frustrating.
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when we're all not piled atop one another - there IS a pecking order but it consists
of THOSE THAT DO - not talking keyboard warrior-types - and those that can vie with
and (politely) defer to others of the same ilk...its a kinda shared order. :cheers:
 
S

Swallow Tail

Billy Hamilton status
Oct 6, 2017
1,737
3,070
113
Your Mom’s House
Everyone should road trip to the Gulf Coast.
GromsDad said:
I am not kidding when I say that the crowd issue is worse at the popular spots near my house when there are waves than Lowers. I've lived with and watched it get worse my whole life. Its reached the level of insanity. I can paddle out at Lowers and get my waves and not get frustrated. If you read the ocean and know how to operate in a crowd you're going to put yourself in position to get waves at Lowers. I actually find the crowd at Lowers to be orderly. Up until about 15 years ago things were fairly orderly in the lineups here too and then it just all went to hell with entitled inland assholes and a huge influx of kooks and aggros on longboards. There is no pecking order and everyone piles on top of each other. It is sooooooo frustrating.
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3 things -

W points n reef breaks - spots w a well delineated lineup, it is much easier for there to be order.

w beach breaks it’s much easier for there to be confusion n chaos - especially tough for looks n newbies to figure out, and easier for paddle battle a-holes to be greedy.

once the crowd passes the “saturation point” it makes any type of order on the lineup very difficult.
 
bird.LA

bird.LA

Rabbitt Bartholomew status
Jul 14, 2002
8,122
1,803
113
LA
GromsDad said:
There is no pecking order and everyone piles on top of each other.
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Why haven't the locals (you) been enforcing one?

I cut my surfing teeth at your spot. Back then (20 years ago, inland kook) there was pretty much never a crowd. I guess the crowds crept up on you guys before you could establish any sort of pecking order and eventually it was too late?

Genuinely curious as it sounds like a lot has changed there. I remember my beginner kook self having no problem getting plenty of waves even on hurricane swells back in those days - maybe you shouldn't have let me :shaka:
 
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GromsDad

GromsDad

Duke status
Jan 21, 2014
54,824
16,694
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West of the Atlantic. East of the ICW.
bird.LA said:
Why haven't the locals (you) been enforcing one?

I cut my surfing teeth at your spot. Back then (20 years ago, inland kook) there was pretty much never a crowd. I guess the crowds crept up on you guys before you could establish any sort of pecking order and eventually it was too late?

Genuinely curious as it sounds like a lot has changed there. I remember my beginner kook self having no problem getting plenty of waves even on hurricane swells back in those days - maybe you shouldn't have let me :shaka:
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80s, 90s even early 2000s there was a very well defined pecking order. Its a sh!t show now. Crowds have exploded. You'd have to see it on a decent day to believe it.

A big problem with where I live is there are about a dozen surf cams within a mile of my house covering most of the good jetties and peaks. That draws people from out of town like flies to poo. Its as if waves don't exist if a cam isn't there. Unfortunately that's concentrated right on the breaks near my house. Its not unusual now for me to drive to another town to surf to avoid the crowds near my house.
 
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Subway

Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,539
10,208
113
LBNY
For sure. I knew the times had changed when, back in 2008, I saw a teenage Korean girl getting a surf lesson at rockaway in FEBRUARY

it wasn’t many years prior that you would have been stocked to surf with a few buddies and strangers at any named spot in February up here
 
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bluemarlin04

Michael Peterson status
Aug 13, 2015
2,565
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Rhode Island gets packed on the weekends. Showed up to second beach once and it was PACKED.

Most of the people couldn't catch anything so if you are a halfway decent surfer you will get waves. But RI attracts boston, Delaware, and NH Crowd.
 
Bayview

Bayview

Billy Hamilton status
Dec 21, 2009
1,695
1,128
113
NJ
Attributes arent comparable. Does not compute. It’s like asking: which is better, boobies or t!tties?

to keep the pot stirred.
 
E

EastCoastBrah

Legend (inyourownmind)
Nov 16, 2020
501
462
63
bluemarlin04 said:
Rhode Island gets packed on the weekends. Showed up to second beach once and it was PACKED.

Most of the people couldn't catch anything so if you are a halfway decent surfer you will get waves. But RI attracts boston, Delaware, and NH Crowd.
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Not New York and New Jersey too?
 
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Sharkbiscuit

Duke status
Aug 6, 2003
26,709
19,656
113
Jacksonville Beach
EastCoastBrah said:
Not New York and New Jersey too?
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If Delaware is going some of Jersey is probably going. eg southerly groundswell + winds with more North than Jersey likes. But some of those people will be going to Long Island instead.

Long Island and Rhode Island like similar swell/wind directions. There is way more sand exposed to swell on Long Island than Rhode Island, so if you're surfing beachbreak, why bother.

And even if you want a point/reef, is Judo or Matty or wherever really worth the backtracking and then driving out I-95 vs just pointing it to Montauk on the LIE?


RemyXO said:
This is a potentially stupid question, but does the east side of CONN get any wave action from some big, weird angled storm?
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Probably on its day there is something possible to slide here and there, but between Fisher's Island and some nearshore breakwaters you'd have to be pretty lucky, and if you're that far East in CT you're like 10-15 minutes from far better exposed beachbreak in RI.

I think Ben Gravy caught it fully n00king and there's probably some little novelties here and there, a little bitty peeler, a little wedge pocket that's on for 45 minutes after a blizzard passes. If you want to ride a soft top on a knee high wave in 40 degree water for the dream, the Nutmeg State is calling!
 
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RemyXO

RemyXO

Michael Peterson status
Mar 12, 2003
3,537
430
83
San Luis Obispo
Sharkbiscuit said:
Probably on its day there is something possible to slide here and there, but between Fisher's Island and some nearshore breakwaters you'd have to be pretty lucky, and if you're that far East in CT you're like 10-15 minutes from far better exposed beachbreak in RI.

I think Ben Gravy caught it fully n00king and there's probably some little novelties here and there, a little bitty peeler, a little wedge pocket that's on for 45 minutes after a blizzard passes. If you want to ride a soft top on a knee high wave in 40 degree water for the dream, the Nutmeg State is calling!
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Sweet! Buying my plane ticket, charging my GoPro, packing my inflatable SUP, and setting up a Connecticut surf Vlog as we speak. :computer:
 
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