Meet the vibrant community catching waves at Rockaway Beach.
Four years ago, Catherine Bao had never touched a surfboard. As a member of New York City’s thriving skate culture, Bao spent her time shredding in the streets, not the waves. That is, until 2019 when a friend suggested she forgo pavement for water — at least for a day.
Bao remembers renting her first board from Surfboard Tribe NYC on 67th Street and Beach Front Road when a red minivan pulled up in the parking lot. “All of these girls popped out of the minivan and were grabbing boards,” she recalls. “All the girls were brown and Black, and that was definitely something that I'd never associated with surfing.”
In the driver’s seat sat Aydon Gabourel, co-founder of Laru Beya Collective — a Rockaway Beach-based organization “empowering the historically excluded youth of the Far Rockaways through surfing.” Gabourel and Bao began talking as everyone headed for the waves. “The energy was amazing in the water, and it was great to see the girls. There were a few other women, predominantly women of color, who were [boarding], too,” says Bao. “Talking to Adyon, I was like, ‘I'm obsessed with this. I'm gonna get really good, and I'm going to do my 10,000 hours [to become an expert] as fast as possible.’”
Just like that, a love of the sport was born.
For the unordained, Rockaway Beach sits between 67-69 Street and 87-92 Street in Queens, New York. The word Rockaway is believed to come from “Reckouwacky,” a Canarsie Native American word meaning “place of our own people.” The Canarisie people were the first to live in Rockaway before it was colonized by European settlers in the 17th century. Today, this strip of beach attracts a devout mix of New Yorkers eager to catch some waves at New York’s only legal surf beach.
“There aren’t many places in the world where you have such a massive metropolitan area close to the beach like Rockaway is,” says Tyler Breuer, co-host of the podcast Swell Season Surf Radio. The city itself is one of the reasons the surf culture at Rockaway is special, he says. “Everyone comes to New York for some reason that’s probably not surfing,” he adds. “They're here to pursue something business-oriented or creative, and many of them have come from places where there is surfing, but they don't realize that there’s surf here.” Once they know that they can hop on a Far Rockaway-bound train and join the lineup, they do. Inevitably, the heart and soul necessary to live in NYC ends up in the Rockaway water.
Diversity is another aspect that sets Rockaway Beach apart from other surf spots. “Rockaway has a lot of people from many different backgrounds,” explains Breuer. “There’s a big Caribbean culture here, a big African culture here. There’s also an Irish culture here. There’s public housing that's right on the waterfront, so you have this big mix of culture and socio-economic backgrounds around here.”
As of 2020, immigrants accounted for about 28 percent of the population in the Rockaways, and more than 53 percent of residents identified as either Black or Hispanic, according to The Office of the New York State Controller. The community at Rockaway Beach hasn’t always reflected the diversity on land, but organizations such as Laru Beya Collective, Black Surfing Association, and Benny’s Club are hard at work creating a more equitable future for the sport through swim programs, meet-ups, summer camps, and other initiatives.
Their stewardship is paying off: According to a new report released by the Surf Industry Members Association (SIMA) and ActionWatch, the Black and Hispanic surfing communities have grown the most in the last three to five years. Together, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Pacific Island surfers account for about 40 percent of the total surfing population, an increase that Surfer chalks up to years of working toward a more inclusive sport.
Bao, now a co-organizer at Laru Beya, has witnessed this shift for herself in her years surfing Rockaway. “Dark-skinned women, you know, that doesn't happen a lot in California. It hasn't become a part of the culture [there],” she says. “In New York, I can say after many years, it’s pretty pedestrian to see [that] in Rockaway in particular. I wouldn’t say Jersey; I wouldn't say Long Island — but in Rockaway, yes. And that's our impact.”
The pandemic also contributed to significant growth in the sport. Rockaway Beach witnessed a COVID-19 surfing boom unlike anything Breuer had seen before. “When I look back to my childhood and surfing, I could surf a lot of places pretty much alone or with just a couple of other people. It was never really that crowded,” he says. “In New York, over the last 20 years, you've seen a really steep incline in newer surfers because a lot more people are becoming aware that there’s surf here.”
As more surfers joined the lineup, the fight for ocean conservation has also grown. “The ocean used to be really bad here in New York. It used to be gross,” says Breuer, adding that, when he was young, he was hospitalized with a sinus infection that almost turned into meningitis after surfing the Rockaway waters. “Some incredible legislation has protected the water quality. I remember there used to be tar and needles and all this weird shit that would just wash up on the beach,” he adds.
There’s still a long way to go when it comes to emphasizing equity, cleaning the water, and protecting the Rockaways landscape. But the community is growing — and every day, more people with that magical New York spirit are joining in. “There's enough beach for everybody,” says James Manges, a surf instructor at Locals Surf School in Rockaway Beach. “I think one of the really cool things people don't know about surfing is that we surf all year round. We'll have lessons in January, February, and March, and it's a really fun and kind of wild experience to go surfing when there's snow on the ground.”
Bao hopes that, in the future, surfers in Rockaway and beyond can put aside the sport’s colonist and localist history and welcome everyone to the coastline. “The only reason why Laru Beya exists is because there were so many kids living in Far Rockaway who've grown up there but didn't even know how to swim — even though they live five minutes from a beach,” she says.
If you’re not boarding the Rockaway-bound train with your board and a spirit of stewardship, then you might as well catch the next train back into the city.