
Legends of the Sandbar is an homage to the surf culture of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, written and photographed by Christopher Bickford. It is an ode to the wild and wooly weather, the ever-shifting sands, the salt-battered architecture, the boondock pioneer spirit, and the commitment of a water-logged band of misfits to a life lived on the fringes of American civilization. It was released as a 250-page art book in July 2017, and was hailed by Surfline.com as “a visually mesmerizing poetic triumph.” For more information and updates, follow the links, and sign up for the mailing list. Yewwwww!
In my next life, I'm coming back as a grom. No doubt about it.
Any surfer will tell you, the best way to get good at surfing is to start as a grom. Surfing is a sport that takes a lifetime to master, and if you don't start early, you don't stand much of a chance.
For those who live and surf on the Outer Banks, Jesse Hines needs little introduction. He’s a hometown hero who’s traveled the world, surfing exotic breaks in Alaska, Norway, Iceland, and other frigid locales. He’s been featured on the covers of multiple international surf magazines...And he's got the best fro-yo shop in town...
If Rascoe Hunt didn’t exist, we would have had to invent him. The Outer Banks just wouldn’t be the same otherwise...
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not an early riser by nature. But if the forecast calls for surf, or just the possibility of interesting light, I'll drag myself out of whatever stage of slumber I'm in, and be on the beach at dawn, camera at the ready...
A few weeks ago I sat down with Jim Bunch. Jim was one of the first people to introduce surfing to the Outer Banks, and here he tells the story of the first surf club in Kitty Hawk. Many thanks to Keith Newsome for facilitating the meeting.
Every crew in every surf town in every state and country has a guy like Dana. A guy that just plain loves to surf. A guy who totally shreds but doesn't give a rat's ass for making the big-time. A guy who will paddle out no matter how big or how cold or how messy it is, not because it's in his contract, but because it's in his blood....
It's a point of fact, and a point of pride: surfers who grow up riding the beachbreaks of the mid-Atlantic coast can tube-ride with the best of them, all around the world. Why? Read on...
Have you seen this guy? If you frequent the surf breaks in Kill Devil Hills or Kitty Hawk, chances are you've caught a glimpse of him waxing up his board out the back of his black Cherokee, making a beeline for the beach, or shredding whatever the ocean is serving up on any given day with the local heavies.
Winter is coming, and soon surfing around these parts will be an activity only for the strong of heart. Everybody knows to make hay while the sun shines, and for the last two weeks, there's been a lot of haymaking...
We could feel gusts up to 50 knots blowing through the trees, and burly stormclouds were passing low; but it was a warm, tropical wind and we were all enjoying that mid-April feeling that we’d finally seen the back side of winter.
Surfers the world over know that it’s not just about the ride. Ask anybody who has logged untold hours paddling against the current, taken it on the head more times than they can count, and sat forever shivering, waiting for the next wave. All for a twenty-second thrill? Not exactly.
We were like dogs who never tired of chasing a ball. Shoot the pier, ride to the shoreline, walk back under the pier, paddle back out, shoot it again. It was an easy, effortless ride, just the way life seemed to be that summer.
We lost another one this year.
Native Nags Header and longtime Rodanthe stalwart Walter Walker Pruden passed away in his second home in Eleuthera, Bahamas, in late March. As his longtime friend Richard Byrd said to me, “He made his last stand in a place he loved.”