From the Editor
Surf City, here we come
More of this
Less of this
Here from Quebec for the week was an entire club of surfers, including several families, camping out at the beach from dawn till dusk, as happy to be here in York, Maine, as if they had been on Waikiki. Here all day Monday were over 50 surfers from the Eastern Surfing Association, aged from under 11 to over 70, all giving thanks to the surfing gods that brought them the offshore breeze, big seven-foot swells and warm waters needed to make their annual surf competition a success. Here, too, the dozens and dozens of citizens who live and vote right here in York, many of whom have been surfing York's beaches for well on 30 years or more.
Though hardly by design, York has become one of the top surfing destinations of the Northeast. Decades removed from its early days as a sport belonging to the fringes, surfing has long since gone mainstream, for better or worse. Regardless of where you come down on that, the simple fact for York is that the sport is growing and as it does, the surfers will continue to come to York's beaches in growing numbers. The big question for us as a community is whether we choose to welcome them or not.
Which brings us to the less happy undercurrent of the past week's waves.
The town of York has an official surf zone, generally enforced only in the summer months. It is big enough to do a lot of things in. Unfortunately, surfing is not one of them.
Wind and current obey no man, not even ocean-worshipping surfheads, and the bigger the swell, the bigger the current, and the harder it is to stay in any zone, let alone one that you would shoot out the end of on any decent ride. York also allows unrestricted surfing during the early morning hours and in the evening. But again, the surf is up when it is up, and cares not a curl for the arbitrary schedules set upon it by us, Kahunas and Wahinis though we may well be.
This is not news. Our selectmen know it, our police force knows it, our life guards know it, the surfers know it. There have been discussions already this summer, and there are plans for more discussions over the winter, to find a workable solution. All of which makes the ugly altercations between local surfers and lifeguards this past Wednesday, and the heavy enforcement presence which followed, all the more regrettable.
On the one hand, we had exasperated and intimidated lifeguards placed in the no-win situation of trying to sporadically enforce an utterly unenforceable situation, followed by armed patrolmen coming onto the beach to take charge.
On the other hand, we had dozens of swell-starved surfers, many of them local, confused by a summer of on-again, off-again enforcement of the surf zone while doing their best to conveniently not hear, or in some cases blatantly and aggressively ignore, the instructions and orders of both lifeguards and officers.
The net of all this: police stationed at the edge of the surf zone, otherwise laid-back and responsible adult surfers now frustrated with their town and angry with their fellow surfers, summonses being issued for criminal trespassing for surfing outside the zone.
It did not end on Wednesday either.
Labor Day morning found an enormous swell, hundreds of surfers and a very visible beach presence by the York Police Department. Surfers on the beach, both local and visitors, were clearly intimidated and many of them, looking at the dozens of surfers already dangerously packed into the official surf zone, chose to simply go home. (Perhaps realizing the no-win nature of the situation, the York police later stepped back and opened the length of the beach to surfing for the rest of the day.)
Wonderful, all this. Intimidated and verbally abused lifeguards backed up by armed patrolmen. Locals versus summer police and out-of-town lifeguards. Fleeing youths paddling to the Nubble, running up the rocks and down Nubble Road. Angry longtime surfer-residents and wary visitors uncertain as to whether they should stay and surf or just give up and go home, away from the whole mess. Surfers as criminals and surfing as a crime. Somewhere in the background the only song we hear is "Wipeout," and it is our community that is doing the collective faceplant.
We can solve this. We have the whole winter now to do it. The sport of surfing has the opportunity to be a jewel for this town for decades to come. It's time we realized that, and it's time the leaders in the surfing community and those in town government with the ability to do something positive about it get paddling.
