A young, square-jawed surfer and harbor pilot named Bob Holland opened the first sole surf shop at the beach at 19th Street and Atlantic Avenue, across the street from the Pocahontas Hotel.
The year was 1962 and the small resort town of Virginia Beach (population 8,000) and its hulking neighbor, Princess Anne County (population 107,000), were involved in a plan to merge into one vast city.
The idea was to avoid further annexation by land-hungry Norfolk, which already had gobbled up …Â Details
The Windy City is one of America’s sports meccas: home to the Bears and the Bulls, the Sox and the Cubs, and, Chicagoans are only recently willing to admit, the Blackhawks. But can it become Surf City, U.S.A.?
This week, Chicago Park District’s governing board empowered the city superintendent to lift a decades-old ban on the use of flotation devices like boogie boards on the city’s waterways. (The ordinance was established to prevent accidental drownings; government officials were chiefly concerned about liability, and the prospect that novice swimmers, imitating highly skilled surfers, might leap into Lake Michigan, especially in harsh winter conditions.) The move will effectively …Â Details
 A lot of people say that summer doesn’t really start in western Washington until July 4.
The weather does get reliably warm and sunny in early July, and that is summer for most people.
For western Washington surfers – a gritty, neoprene-encased bunch – summer begins when the small, clean swells roll onto coastal beaches, and the sun rises early and sets late.
And that’s happening right now. The cycle of smaller swells with gentle winds seems to be in place, and the summer solstice – on June 21 this year – means there is plenty of light for early morning and late evening surfing.
Surfers usually lust after huge waves, but things are different out here. Washington’s coast often has waves that are too big … Details