Liquid Lines
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•October 30, 2025
Weather Patterns We Just Can’t Shake
Did any other surfers get that feeling last week that the stretch of bad luck, bad sand and bad vibes was over? Yes, the sandbars were absolute hot garbage at most spots, but we had a few breaks…
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•October 23, 2025
Ray of Hope Follows Nor’easter’s Lousy Legacy; Are Wave Pools the Answer?
Does anyone feel like wave pools are starting to replace the experience of ocean surfing? For a while there, it was a novelty, but now it’s becoming a legitimate option when the waves don’t line up.…
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•October 15, 2025
The No-Good Nor’Easter; Breaking Down a Tough Storm With No Clean Surf
So… this is it? This is the best time of the year for the Jersey Shore?
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•October 9, 2025
Barrier Island Folk Watch in Dismay as North Carolina Loses Ground to the Ocean
Coming from New Jersey, the Outer Banks holds a particular draw for any surfer or beach person. Not only are the waves more powerful and consistent, but the Carolina coast is considered “humid…
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•September 24, 2025
Revisiting a Classic Children’s Tale and Hoping for Better Winds to Wind Down September
This column is always a good opportunity to tell a good story. This is not the usual story like Beach Haven locals paddling to an outer shoal during Hurricane Belle in 1976 or the story of when the…
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•September 18, 2025
Best Season for Free Finds, Surf Stays Consistent and Tropics May Kick On
It was a precarious moment, as we were sitting at a light on Saturday morning. A car making a left turn southbound on the Boulevard caused a commotion when the coffee tumbler inadvertently left on…
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•September 11, 2025
Quiet Summer Afterglow With Waves and a Strange Absence of Tropical Activity
Boy, that got quiet. Tumbleweed Tuesday had come and gone, and one week after Labor Day Saturday – with temps still in the 80s, the ocean as warm as it gets, with abundant sunshine – the beaches and…
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•September 4, 2025
Sliding Joyfully Into the Best Time of Year
And as if someone yelled “last call,” the summertime revelers have packed up their e-bikes and weighted g-vests to head westward into the sunset. But anyone with any kind of ties to LBI can tell you…
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•August 28, 2025
Hurricane Erin Was a Wild Ride on All Fronts
Wait. What? Labor Day? It seems like just yesterday we were dealing with a new traffic pattern at the Ship Bottom Circle. And now, here we are facing down 40-foot Home Depot skeleton season.
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•August 21, 2025
Your Complete Guide to Hurricane Erin; Littleneck Laughs
Cue the dramatic music. This could be one of the most interesting weeks of waves on Long Beach Island for the year. Hurricane Erin is out there sending swell of historic proportions, and as a surf…
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•August 13, 2025
Wondering Where the Sand Goes After Replenishment? Longboard Classic Was Fire, and Tropics Heat Up
I have to imagine regular beachgoers don’t look at beaches the way surfers do. Or at least, they don’t look at as many beaches.
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•August 7, 2025
Summertime Conversations; Fun in the Water Continues
“Do a cannonball!” I heard the renters yell from my neighbor’s yard.
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•July 31, 2025
A Summer Clam Roll Recipe as Surf Cools and Events Heat Up
Every summer for the last few years I have, without really planning it, included some recipe or another in these Liquid Lines. It’s usually based on some summer harvest, seasonal tradition or…
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•July 23, 2025
Little Sunday Mysto Swell Adds to Summer Fun
This is turning out to be quite an enjoyable summer. Last Sunday was the Jetty Coquina Jam. And while my colleague Ciara Dursee has the full wrap-up of the event in this issue, I want to note there…
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•July 16, 2025
Brushes With Naturism in the Pines, Little-Wave Summer and the Jetty Coquina Jam This Weekend
I was recently telling my son a story of when I was a little kid. It was the early ’80s, and my father had taken my brother and me canoeing through the Pines. I should start by saying that for all of…
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•July 15, 2025
The Lengths We Go to Avoid Traffic, Fantastic Fourth, Little Swells Keep Us in the Water
It’s fair to say that was a fantastic July 4 by pretty much all measures. The waves were a little lacking, but it was surfable all weekend. The weather was simply incredible, especially when you…
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•July 2, 2025
A Strange Fourth of July for America; Summer Surf Keeps Us Going
There is a scene early on in the movie “Forrest Gump” where a gang of meatheads in a truck with a Confederate flag license plate chases down a kid with a learning disability. That movie came out in…
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•June 26, 2025
Someone Switched on Summer, The Benefits of a Good Small-Wave Board and When to Watch the Tropics
Where in the world can you see a humpback whale, a hip hop show, a rainbow and a burst of flora all in the same weekend? They can show up at barrier islands at the same time. And it would mean that…
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•June 18, 2025
When Sharks Fall From the Sky; Surf’s Been Down as Water Temp Has Been Up
I definitely prefer disc golf vibes to golf/country club vibes, but that’s a matter of personal preference. I’m not going to pretend I know much about either sport. But the disk golfers we met on the…
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•June 11, 2025
Cut-Offs and Flip Flops: Timeless Summer Sexy Supermarket Style Watching
There’s a certain comfort in going to the supermarket in June – something about seeing locals wearing cut-offs and flip flops doing that most mundane chore of grocery shopping that has an endearing…
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•June 4, 2025
Scary Text Messages From Robots, Film Fest This Weekend and Mixed Reviews on the Waves
I got a text from a robot the other day, and I’m pretty sure it spells bad news for our town. She said her name was Kim. I have my doubts.
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•May 28, 2025
Big Holiday Weekend Gives Way to Pleasantries of Early Summer
As Memorial Day weekends go, that was pretty tame. I didn’t hear of any mass casualties at the Ship Bottom Circle predicted by every community Facebook commenter for the last three weeks.
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•May 25, 2025
What Constitutes a Great Summer as We Usher In Coming Season
Well, that new traffic pattern at the Ship Bottom Circle is going to give us all plenty to talk about at the big backyard gatherings and dock bars. Whether you’re local or summer folk, whether you’re…
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•May 15, 2025
The Real ID Dilemma as We Can Finally Call This Spring
I figure this week I would go and get my Real ID, specifically since we were supposed to have it by last week. I’ve been putting it off. I guess technically, I’ve been putting it off since it was…
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•May 1, 2025
Look Back at When Americorps Came to Our Rescue; Bringing Up Beach Badges
Think about that time. If you don’t know exactly what was going on here – and I don’t say this lightly – go bone up on your local history.
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•April 19, 2025
Third Winter’s Silver Lining of Surf as Roadwork Continues Forever
While flipping through the SandPaper in our kitchen last week, I announced to the family, “Oh, Ship Bottom is celebrating its 100th year.”
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•April 3, 2025
Precarious Positions in the Between Seasons and Events Stacking Up
Well, it appears we made it out of March with only a few baby lions and a nice day with a pet lamb. And now it’s April, a month generally known for third winter and guarded optimism.
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•March 20, 2025
‘Thinking Late Winter’ Instead of ‘Thinking Spring’ as the Atlantic Finally Comes Alive to Mixed Results
It feels like it’s been a very long time since there was good swell to report. Writing a surf column without surf is about as fun as playing pickleball alone (see … I know my audience).
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•March 6, 2025
Of Lions and Lambs; Carried Out of February By Waves; Gutting of NOAA
There are some things that make writing a surf column particularly enjoyable.
