A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

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Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

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Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

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Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

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Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

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Azores

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Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

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Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

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Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

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Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

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Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

North Carolina's 300-mile coastline is fronted almost entirely by a chain of sandy islands, or "banks." The state's best surf—and arguably the best surf on the entire East Coast—is located along the Outer Banks: long, narrow, lightly developed islands known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" for the hundreds of ships that have run aground and sunk on its offshore sandbars. Jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, surf along the Outer Banks is often bigger than anywhere else on the eastern seaboard; 12-foot-plus waves have been ridden here, but the ideal size generally ranges from three to six feet. 

Sandbars adjacent to piers and jetties invariably create the most consistent and best-shaped waves. Cape Hatteras is the most popular Outer Banks area, and the jetties near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton produce shifty, hollow, hard-breaking waves. 

The relaxed setting, composed almost entirely of water, sky, sea grass, and rolling dunes, greatly adds to the Outer Banks experience. "I defy any surfer to walk out to the tip of sand that is the Cape," Australian surf journalist Nick Carroll wrote in 1997, "and not leave aware that the Banks is one of the world's greatest surfing areas; as unique as the North Shore of Oahu, or the Gold Coast of Queensland."

The fall hurricane season is generally the best time to catch waves in North Carolina, seconded by powerful but erratic nor'easter winter swells. Spring surf is inconsistent, and summer brings long periods of small, gutless waves. The southern half of the North Carolina coast bends to face the southeast and is fronted by a broad continental shelf, and thus often receives a much-dissipated version of the swells that move head-on into the Outer Banks. High-quality waves can nonetheless be found at fairly regular intervals in the south at places like Wrightsville Beach, Masonboro Island, and Bogue Banks. 

Average daytime air temperatures in North Carolina range from the mid 80s in summer to the mid-40s in winter; water temperatures range from the high 70s to the high 40s; temperatures in the north are generally a few degrees cooler. Jellyfish, stingrays, and sharks are North Carolina's main surfing hazards.

Lifeguards at Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach introduced surfing to southern North Carolina in the late '40s and early '50s. Carolina Beach lifeguard/surfer Lank Lancaster cofounded East Coast Surfboards, the state's first surf shop, in 1964, making boards on the side porch of a converted meat market, and selling trunks and T-shirts in the front. The state's first two surf contests were held in 1966, one at Carolina and the other at Wrightsville. 

Restrictions on surfing imposed in the mid- and late '60s (the sport was outlawed altogether in tiny Surf City) soon had wave-riders searching for breaks in outlying areas. Meanwhile, North Carolina native Tom Fearing began riding waves along the Outer Banks in the early '30s, but surfing didn't catch on there until the early '60s (just a few years after Cape Hatteras became the first protected National Seashore Park), when teenagers Buddy Hooper and John Ochs of Buxton took up the sport. After the Oregon Inlet Bridge was completed in 1962, the Buxton/Hatteras area grew in popularity as a summertime vacation spot, and Hatteras local John Conner was soon renting boards to visitors; in 1968, Conner converted a mobile home into the region's first surf shop. 

Before the decade was out, top East Coast surfers like Gary Propper, Claude Codgen, and Mike Tabeling had all named the Outer Banks as the eastern seaboard's hottest wave. Cape Hatteras, easily identified by its 19th-century black- and-white barber-pole lighthouse, hosted the annual Eastern Surfing Association (ESA) Championships for the first time in 1971, and the event has returned to Hatteras (or nearby) each year. The $3,000 1972 ESA Pro at North Carolina's Atlantic Beach was the East Coast's first professional surf contest. The United States Surfing Championships were held at Cape Hatteras in 1974, 1978, and 1982.

By the early 2000s, the once-sleepy Outer Banks had become a seasonal surfing boomtown, with 25 surf shops catering to tens of thousands of surfers visiting from up and down the East Coast. North Carolina's resident surfing population is thought to be around 10,000. 

North Carolina's top surfers include Ben Bourgeois, Noah Snyder, and Jesse Hines. The North Carolina surf has been featured in dozens of surf movies and videos, including 

 (2002). The Eastern Surfing Association holds about 15 contests each year in North Carolina. Outer Banks beach town Kill Devil Hills was named to 

 magazine's list of the "10 Best Surf Towns in America" in 2010.

North Carolina

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