Best east coast town to live and surf in?

Born & raised in NJ. Lived (not visited) in GA, FL, MD, SC, NC & now VA. Soley on waves...hands-down, New Jersey wins. Sorry, but there's no arguing the quality of waves if you're from the other listed places...not based on my experiences.

Introducing weather & affordability really puts a good dent in NJ, though. I'd say the south end of Virginia Beach is the place of the best compromise. The weather's not bad. It's affordable. Nags head is an hour away & Buxton just over 2. Some pretty good resturaunts & decent nightlife, too. The one drawback is it is the most bennied-out place I've ever been in the summer.

 

agreed.we have the best quality.however,Hatteras has many more rideable days,and many less flat days and flat spells.they pick up swell no one else does in Buxton.

 

agreed about manasquan, and ocnj. ocmd seems like a great place as well. great vibe. i would have to single out manasquan though. long beach island is filled with great breaks though. miles of great breaks there. hoping to test out the outer banks coming up real soon here.


also please confirm this for me. that part about jacksonville florida. is that serious? florida seems like the most mediocre spot on the east coast for surfing. as a child i constantly summered in ormond beach for a few years of my childhood. tried surfing, and even body boarding as a real youngster. the best surfing there on most days is body surfing. it's really not worth bringing a board all the way out there unless there is a significant swell. jacksonville though? i have been there a couple times. was in jacksonville for two weeks back in the summer of 91 visiting a girl i was with at the time. it was pretty flat. went to the beach a few times that trip too. was also in jacksonville two years ago this week with the girl i was dating who was temporarily living there at the time. took a trip to st augustine too. aside from the warm water, and beautiful colors florida never offered me much in the way of surfing. i really am curious if the jacksonville comment was serious or a joke. cause it was pretty poor when i was there.

 

Long Branch NJ, good waves and lots of night life

 

I have never lived down in JAX area, but on paper, central and northern florida have the most waves on the east coast. Including OBX. Central FL has ridable, mushy waist high surf like 35% of the year... On Paper... Where OBX is about 30-35% as well and Jersey is in the high 20% range... That Florida Statistic may translate to weak longboard dribble to some surfers.... But as far as waking up everyday, walking to the beach and finding a wave. Central/Northern Florida have more surf than Jers and OBX... But I doubt you will find many gaping tubes down there.,... Just my thoughts... So, mix a pretty consistent amount of surfable windswell, warm water and warm weather all year, that sounds to me like a pretty chill surf area... Waves and weather... Thats what surfing is all about.

 

what about the Northeast?

Seems like you could live in Boston and have some local breaks real close, New Hampshire beaches less than an hour away, and Rhode Island beaches about 1.5 hours away. Definitely a lot of jobs up there, plus you got mountains nearby for snowboarding or hiking and the scenery beats anything around here. But then there's that cold water....

I went to Halifax a couple summers ago...that is a real chill city. Could definitely live there. The water temp was something like 48 in the middle of July...

 

Yeah, my navy buddy moved from out here to Boston for like 2 years. He said he would drive up and down the coast and finds some fun waves. He just said it was too cold though. Like, he thought he was going to die in the water cold. Water temps arent much lower than jersey and maryland, but the wind and air temps up there get nuts.... So, yeah the waves are decent, but the surfing lifestyle is pretty hardcore up there.

 

Zach, im not sure what "on paper" means (maybe report by the North Florida Bureau of Surf Tourism?) but i dont believe for a minute that north florida gets more consistent waves than OBX, and i kind of doubt its as consistent as parts of Jersey and maybe even OCMD. I dunno seems like Wetsand type "data"

 

F**K Cold Water!

 

Honestly, the only good part of magicseaweed is their swell consitency data. Because it was all based on recorded waves heights and not forecasts. So, by using that tool, and for the past 4 years checking a lot of the spots year round, I have noticed that generally, those readings from magicseaweed are pretty spot on. They are pretty much dead on for California too. Im not saying that any of my data "on paper" is 100% factual, but if you havent look at their swell data for each place annually, you should check it out. Its worth a read if nothing more. Some may argue the data, and they may be correct, because I am doing all my research remotely and not actually seeing the waves. But I checked the central coast of Florida pretty often for 2 years and surprisingly, they have waves. A lot they good days are 3-4 foot days of windswell... Again. I wasnt there. Im just going off surfline reports and stuff. But the data on magic seaweed is pretty accurate for OC MD, Jersey and VB.... And OBX and Florida Rank about the same as far as consitency, but they are different waves... And after those two, it goes OC NJ and so and and so on... But they pretty much agree with everything you are saying, aside from the fact that Florida isnt as consistent. To me, it looked much more consistent than the reports I read in Jersey. But many would argue that the actual waves in Jersey are much more when they are around... And again, these regions are all fairly close in consistency percentages, and more flat than not... But with that being said... a 5% increase in waves for a whole year means a few extra waves every month. So if its flat alot, those little 5-10% differences are huge. To me that says there are quite a few more waves out there.

Just my opinion. Again, I dont lve in either place. I am just a surf report nerd... I check like 50 places I live no where near every day just out of curiousity. Pretty cool what you find.

 

Better than Boston in the same area for quality of life and surfing is Portland ME, Portsmouth NH, Providence RI. All 3 great small cities with fun things to do and decent breaks within a 20 minute drive. Gotta be ok with cold water though.

South Jersey shore is also nice, but no really great cities (although Cape May and OC are nice towns). Philly is not too bad but the 70 minute drive to the beach gets tiring.

Further south, I love Charlston SC. Great city. Waves aren't anything special though but not bad.

 

Thats all very true i've lived in CB a couple times i like it had lots of friends the surf wasn't bad and for the most part the break was solid. I like OC tho for the stuff to do in the summer chicks and pretty fair surf.

 

Any town on the West Coast over any town on the east coast hands down.

 

I think it depends on what you are looking for outside of surfing. There are definitely some areas on the East Coast that are more consistent and have more powerful surf. But, if you are looking for diversity and more city life, than you wont want to be on the Outer Banks or Delmarva. If you like the low key, rural life, then think the opposite.

 

one thing I really appreciated about Florida when I lived there, is that the hurricane swells last much longer - I assume this is because the storms move slower as they are getting cranked up so being 1,000 miles south of delmarva we would begin getting good ground swell several days before md and still get swell once it had moved away since the outer banks never blocked a swell for us unless the storm made landfall - and of course once the storms further north they're movement speeds up considerably.

I would estimate that where I lived in central Fl probably gets twice as many good days from the same hurricane as we do here in delmarva just due to geography - of course the storm is usually stronger once it gets here so we get a lot more power out of it.

 

CR alternative

Check out www.rovercam.com for the waves and lomasurfclub.com and ranchoslaslomas.com for the $89,000 to $120,000 new home with lot.

 

i'm probably gonna sound like a moron, but i always check the forecast for florida, and it usually seems fairly flat, or unrideable. not ALWAYS but a lot of times. is jacksonville really a good surfing city? i got a buddy in real estate who got laid off recently, and he was heading to florida to stay with another friend of ours who is in delray beach. he says he's been going to the beach there everyday the past two weeks, and it hasn't been rideable, and he's been going around to different places in the palm beach/fort lauderdale area, but no luck. he was considering jacksonville cause he found some cheap houses there. he keeps talking about california, and hawaii, but they really aren't in his budget especially since he's out of work, and has no job set up there yet. ormond beach/daytona/new smyrna used to get pretty big when a hurricane would come through.

 

guys were talking about the east coast here, northern and central FL could be unrideable 50% of the year & still be twice as consistant as most other spots on the eastern seaboard.

 

If you live in Wrightsville there is no better place for girls, bars, and a layed back atmosphere...If you have a boat in wrightsville there are endless possibilities with barrier island north and south that can fire (i live in wb but hardly surf it b/c its gutless, cb is more my style and a few spots i wont mention within 20 mins). I understand the OBX argument b/c i surf it whenever its big, being only 3.5 hours from wrightsville its not a bad drive and is almost always worth it.

my two cents: Wrightsville for the *****es, bars, and the warm water

ha im a 5th year senior and I don't know if i can leave...DC is where i have an offer, but i just don't know if its worth it to be in the rat race rather than living the dream.

rant over