Since Hurricane Noel and Why We Must Keep Wearing Leashes in Town

Much has streamed by the coast since we last talked, after Hurricane Noel's passing. Yeah, we got great waves the following Sunday and Monday. I had the most fun Monday morning surfing with old buddies, some whom I only see when I surf and only when I'm at certain sandbars. I like to visit different breaks from Kitty Hawk to Pea Island when there's a swell. I can see the locals I've surfed with here since 1975 and make sure I get to surf with them once in a while if I move around to various breaks during the year. Some of them are more habitual about where they like to surf than I am. So, for me, it's like dropping in at their home to visit from time to time.

We have a great surf community on the Outer Banks. It represents a healthy cross section of our local population and has since around 1976. That was the first time I could remember looking around the room at a public hearing considering the imposition of regulated surfing hours and restricted areas to surf here in Kill Devil Hills (KDH). It was to be modeled after Virginia Beach's laws, a city where I had grown up and had my taste of what it's like to sit on the beach and have to watch perfect small waves peel without surfers on them. The only place you could surf between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. was beside the Steel Pier at Rudee Inlet. There were so many surfers and people posing as surfers, you could've walked from board to board. It was ridiculous and no way to surf!

At the time (1976) in KDH there had been a hell of a swell in September and a bunch of locals, me included, descended on 2nd Street, which was one of the three best sandbars north of Oregon Inlet. Planter's Bank (near the original Gray's Department Store) and Domes (the geodesic domes comprising Robert Benson's home) in South Nags Head were the other two. People parked anywhere they could. Seems some parked in the right-of-way on the west side of the beach road and down 2nd Street boxing in the home of a current KDH commissioner. Apparently he didn't like this.

So word soon flew around town that KDH was considering restrictive surfing laws. Word also flew around that local surfers need to somehow organize. I knew this would be a monumental effort, cause most of us were living here to avoid organizations, restrictions, lifestyle congestion, and for this era, any semblance of conventional conformity. I suppose we were being motivated to a type of civic action, many for the first time.

This was the first time I could look around that public hearing room and see just who the surfing community was on this part of the Outer Banks. There were carpenters, waiters, as they were called then, masons, shop owners, club owners, musicians, pharmacists, mechanics, fishermen, and writers. There was Skip Jones, Robbie Snyder, Monty Leavel, Doug Miller, Dave Menaker, who didn't really surf but owned Soundside Folk and Ale House where we all watered down, listened to live music, and met to plan for the public hearings; also Bill Longworth, Brian Caton, Stuart "Panda" Taylor,and my brothers, Jamey and Craig Saunders. (If I left anyone out please let me hear from you.)

Many of us spoke directly to a local government for the first time. I was nervous but I was truly motivated as were many of my friends. The town commissioners listened to us. A deal was proposed: we would wear surf leashes from that day on all the time when surfing in the town. This deal eventually became law for KDH and all the towns. But we could still surf whenever and wherever we wanted. I'd say the surfing community gained it's identity here when this happened. I felt like I now had a place I could call home.

My wife and I have raised three children in KDH one mile from the high tide line. One was born in our home and can't imagine leaving the ocean to go to college, but I'm sure he'll learn how.

I still cringe when I see overly-tattooed young shredders shed their leashes in the towns. I remember the deal that was made back then. I pray they don't lose their boards and injure a tourist or child. Our freedom to ride waves hangs in the balance and in their hands.