Surfing, a Community Sport

By Matt Mahoney

Stonehill News Blog Staff

MARSHFIELD—Surfing in the Northeast is not for the faint of heart. No one knows this better than 24 year old Chad Bruce.

“Surfing around here can be super challenging every time you go out, even on those super nice days, there is always a challenge,” said Bruce

Bruce has surfed all over the world, but said New England remains one of his favorite places to practice the sport even with all of its challenges.

The summers in New England waters are usually flat and lack consistent swell, while the winters are usually bitterly cold, with water temperatures getting down to or below freezing. Summer swells come up the coast most of the time in forms of hurricanes, which stay off shore and generate long period ground swell, which is ideal. 

Surf in the summer also comes to us in the Northeast after a couple days of steady onshore winds, generating what is called wind swell, which is not as powerful and usually not as big as hurricane swell, but still it’s surf

Surfing in the winter means you have to suit up. Suiting up means putting on a five millimeter thick wetsuit, accompanied with boots, gloves and a hood. The best surf in the winter comes after a solid nor’easter. “Winter waves are better than summer waves, even if it means you are freezing and numb to the bone,” said Bruce.

Bruce was born in Scituate, Massachusetts. His father, Allen, taught him to surf at a very young age. Bruce has traveled extensively, to places such as the Caribbean, Mexico, Nicaragua, California and Hawaii to name a few. He also spent a couple years at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, before returning home to work at the local surf shop in Marshfield, Levitate Surf and Skate as a salesman. 

He said that surfing in the Northeast means that you have to be patient. Swell can be inconsistent, with long periods of time in between decent surf. The best surf usually comes in the months of September through early December, and then again between mid-January and late May. 

“The past couple weeks have delivered some really good waves, from New York to Maine, but yeah, the surf is usually spotty,” Bruce said. 

Surfing here in Massachusetts and in the Northeast has a tight knit community aspect to it.

“Here on the south shore, the group of people who surf is a lot closer then say surfers out in California”, Bruce said, “I think it is due to the lack of guys who surf around here, so when you paddle out at a place like Peggotty or Point Allerton, it is always the same group of guys and familiar faces.”

Levitate Surf and Skate really captures the “community” aspect of surfing, by being a cool place where people can go and hang out. 

“I believe that here at Levitate we try and put an emphasis on this idea of community, whether it be by the Levitate Music Festival, or having people come in to Rexicana and share a drink together, you are going to see the same faces there as you are in the lineup, which is pretty sweet,” Bruce said. 

Levitate also has its own surf camp and they run it eight weeks a summer. In Hull, Massachusetts there is South Shore surf camp, and at the end of the summer on a weekend with good waves, the kids get to compete in what is known as the Grom Prix. 

“The surf camps get kids surfing together really young, and this brings a sense of community. The camps help get kids involved and help them meet new faces and make new friends who they may end up surfing with for a long time after they leave camp,” Bruce said.