I have only had the pleasure of surfing midtown and the inlet when Ive been home lately. Has there been any good surf up by the MD/DE border these past couple of winters?
yeah its not bad uptown. today i checked there first then went to mid town and uppers had the size advantage. Yesterday i surfed midtown then at six went to uptown and got it there. only difference was the lower was more crowded. Normally uppers sux compleatly, but with the huge sand bars we got now its been breaking kinda good. And im not bsn either. Check it out sometime. I always go to 142 cause my house is two miles from. Theres a jetty on some beaches too up there too.
yeah, last spring I stayed around 130th st. A few guys told me to check a couple blocks north of there. I saw a couple little peaks, it was only like 2, maybe three feet. I paddled out on a shortboard that Malibus loaned me. It was a super thin 5'10 from one of their team riders. The waves were like unridable on the street I was at. There was a guy longboarding the shorebreak, but I paddled out, got nothing for like 30 minutes and headed back down around 48th and went out there. It was 10 times better. Still only 3 feet, but at least it was breaking.... But I have also heard that in recent years, when the swells are bigger and its high tide, then Uptown works really well and gets better than lower OC. But in the past 5 years or so, I have been skunked in North OC every time. Granted, the swells were pretty minimal, and the one good swell that I saw was so fun at 48th, I surfed there for 3 days straight and never even looked around. It was super fun for a couple days. Just curious. I know with the upcoming beach replishment, everything could change, I was just wondering if any good sandbars or jetties have been showing themselves up North by the border.
Sand moves spots change and with a combo of a different swell direction and tide a spot up north could be firing at the same time south OC could be blown out and ****ty. So it really depends on all of the factors, Its not like SD where we have reefs and can just predict what spots going to be good with a few factors. Here you have to take account for all kinda things. So its really depends the best way to find out is just by getting up there and paddling out.
Yeah, im with you. I grew up around there, so I remember back in the day how the spots would always change. With that being said, I was just wondering if in the past 2 years, the moving sand had been favorable for North OC, or if it has been a couple stale years. I mean, I only visit about twice a year, so I wasn't about to make a judgement on that area based on a few bad days. I just heard down at Malibus, they were saying that North OC had some potential on higher tides this past year and the Inlet and midtown were picking up more consistant surf on all the tides... Again, I was just curious. I remember back in 98-99, I surfed some really good spots up by Deleware. I know it always a crap shoot with all the sand bar moving. North OC will have its time again, I just see the whole OC "surf scene" is really centralized down in Southern OC, which is EPIC for anyone who lives at or frequents the northern breaks... Thanks for the info though.
This is a good thread I was wondering the same thing myself. I was thinking of hopping the ferry and taking a ride down one weekend for the day
yeah it was high tide when it was good there. idk any particular spots that are good there but once the replenish happens, i guatentee it will suck there. Even when its big it still breaks bad durring the summer there.
There used to be a great wave for awhile at the line. Broke really good up until a few years ago after the major replenishment. It would get fairly crowded there too although not nearly as bad as 48th. Spots in OC are really kinda silly. Besides the inlet for the obvious jetty, 48th street for its jettys and unique bottom there really are no spots, just sand bars scattered along the coast that are ever changing.
Exactly. It seems like the year before replenishment is always better for solid bars here and there uptown that will work with some sort of consistency. Look at my shots and you'll see that from this past winter it was lining up alright. And from my understanding midtown pumps a little bit more because of the reefs that channel the flow in, combined with the jetty setup. I will say that after these last few swells there are several bars that are working well with a south flow, so get up on the dunes or in condos if possible to get some kind of view on what's going on.
Matt I will be going down to pick up a new board from ashton in a few weeks if you want to ride along.
Reefs? Hmm im lost also on that one. Maybe rock bottom reef's I'm not aware of any natural reefs in OC.
Yeah...the problem with uptown is they have been pumping Delaware sand on the beach from 70th north and OC Inlet shoal sand on the beach from 70th south for the last 20 years. The Inlet shoal sand is finer grained and forms bars. The Fenwick sand is coarser grained and produces the steeper bottom shore pound weve all come to hate. that said, uptown sure has its days..i really think when its ON its better than mid town. If only it were consistent.
Not natural reefs, the ones I'm talking about are really far offshore fishing "reefs" which consist of basically tires and trash to my understanding... same idea as all those boxcars that got dropped in last year or the year before. There was a conversation about it on here a few years ago I think where it's effect on the midtown break was discussed.
Wow, thats nasty. I would love to hear more about this. They dropped actual boxcars and tires into the ocean off the coast? That sounds pretty insane.
I surf uptown a lot. It has been very good the past few winters. People tend to think that its not that good but on high tide if you want to get some big wide open barrels uptown is the place to go. Not to mention the wind block the condos give. Last few weeks when it has been blowing ofshore 20 you go uptown and the condos block the wind and it gets very good. Hardly ever a soul out. Yes there are plenty of closeouts but i LOVE getting barelled and it can just get really heavy up there. Also if you know the spot where the beach takes a slight turn, on a south swell lines just peel.
I do recall hearing about NYC rail cars being dropped off the coast some years ago, man thats epic im scuba cert. i need to find my way out to one of these reefs
Uptown secret spot Gary Ferguson and I used to surf quality unpopulated waves at Vandiver Avenue uptown, but as Ocean City grew, they changed all the names to numbers. Anyone got an old map handy? The fishing reefs were made by dumping old NYC subway cars. They were cleaned and stripped, but they were from NYC afterall, so how clean could they have really been? http://www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/pressrelease2008/051608.html
