Surf City, , U.S.A. North Carolina Road Trip

Surf City, N.C, U.S.A.
And we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun
Ya, we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
Two girls for every boy Two girls for every boy



In 1963, Surf City became the first Surf song to hit number one. Sung by the duo Jan and Dean, it was written with the help of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. In 1991Dean helped the Huntington Beach City Council to officially brand the community as Surf City. Subsequently Santa Cruz, several hundred miles north, also established claim to Surf City, USA.

However, the only two cities actually called Surf City are on the east coast, one in New Jersey, established in 1899, and the real Surf City, in North Carolina, established later in 1949. However, unlike the song, in North Carolina, due to the proximity of the marine base in Camp Legeune, you are more likely to see two guys for every girl.


Surf City, North Carolina is a six hours and change drive from Charlottesville. To start a journey to the old southeastern beaches of North Carolina, one has to spend some time on America’s busiest highway: Interstate 95. It is a pretty sterile drive. I am eager to get to peel off at Wilson, and start the long diagonal trip across the North Carolina Piedmont into the Coastal Plain. And what’s not to like about Carolina’s 70mph speed limit, on four lane state highways that cut past picturesque farmland. Soon, I am crossing dark sluggish rivers and swamps. Here, tobacco and cotton are still sucking the life out of the pale, sandy soil. The soil gets partially renourished by the nitrogen replenishing root nodules of soybeans if the crops are rotated. Why still tobacco and cotton? Per acre tobacco yields $4000, cotton $530, corn $450, soybeans $315.
I travel through Kinston, and start approaching Jacksonville. You can tell you are approaching a military town when the pawn shops, “gentlemen’s clubs” and loan sharks equal the fast food joints. Things get interesting as you get past the city and start skirting the southern border of Camp Lejeune. Since September 1941, Camp Lejeune has been the home of “Expeditionary Forces in Readiness”, and throughout the years, it has become the home base for the II Marine Expeditionary Force, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Logistics Group and other combat units and support commands. It occupies 156,000 acres, with 11 miles of beach. It supports approximately 170,000 people. Route 17 travels mostly through scrub pine. Convoys travel past, with the trucks oddly armored against IED’s. Signs along the road warn of the potential for sudden obscuring smoke clouds, low flying aircraft, and loud explosions. Sadly, none occur.
Surf City is on Topsail Island, between North Topsail Beach, and to the south, Topsail Beach. To the north of the island is Camp Lejeune, then Emerald Isle. To the south are the beaches of Wrightsville, Carolina, Kure, Holden, and Sunset. These old southern beaches have familiar names and memories to one who has spent 59 summers vacationing on the NC coast.
Way back then you would pile in the back of a packed station wagon, between your sibs, luggage, groceries and beach toys. Then you are driven eight agonizingly boring hours down concrete highways, whose expansion joints would create a rhythmic repetitive thump-thump-thump against the retread tires, which were doomed to fail. Lunch and dinner came in a hamper, as there were no reliable places to eat, and heavens, who could afford the prices. The inevitable annual recriminations would explode from the front of the car as your parents discussed the wisdom of bypassing the previous gas station, as it turned out to likely be the last before running out, or arriving after the one station at the beach had closed at 5pm Friday for the weekend. Your father was relieved as he noted that the only telephone on the island, the payphone at the one store on the island, seemed operational. Military precision was required to empty the car’s encyclopedic contents into the cottage in the dark before everyone required a blood transfusion from the mosquitoes. And the wonder of the pre-development night sky.

The one meal eaten out if one was staying at the far southern beaches would have to happen at Calabash, hard on the border with South Carolina. This small town boasts that it is the “Seafood Capital of the World”. It now has a population of 1700, and by one count, one restaurant for every 10 residents. It started as rustic fish camps serving in the open the fresh catch from the nearby ships. It has become the name of a style of cooking, hard to define, easy to recognize. I say Calabash seafood means large portions of local fresh seafood that is lightly breaded in cornmeal, deep fried, and served immediately, usually with simple sides of hush puppies, coleslaw, and your choice of baked potato or fries. The restaurant should be open to the outside, cheap, and have a relaxed atmosphere.




To get to the island and Surf City, you cross the Inland Waterway on the “swing bridge”, which opens every hour to allow shipping to pass. The Inland Waterway was started in 1919 by the federal government buying up numerous private canals up and down the East and Gulf coasts, and linking them with new canals and channels behind the offshore islands. It proved its worth during World War Two, as coastal residents watched the horizon burn, witnessing the German U-boat’s Wolfpack sink 259 ships. And the coastal residents were almost the only to know, as it was felt this was too terrible a carnage for the public to be informed. But to the sailors, the waters off North Carolina became known as “Torpedo Junction”. The waterway was used to safely transport 90 million tons of vital supplies.

Surf City is on Topsail Island (pronounced topsul), between North Topsail Beach, and to the south, Topsail Beach. For those used to the Nags Head/ Kitty Hawk sprawl, Surf City will either be a pleasant surprise, or a disappointment. It is definitely a step back in beach time. There is only one obligatory Wings (hawking its hapless hermit crabs), and only one Hardee’s, Subway and Domino’s. The other roughly 20 restaurants are locally owned. There is one arcade, no golf, and no go carts.
In the center of town on the beach is the Surf City Ocean Pier, the last of three to survive the hurricanes. As with most piers, it has its own unique subculture, and is open 24 hours a day. It even has its own ten commandments of behavior on display at the entrance. One dedicated pier fisherman arrives early, pulling a cart piled with rods, tackle, coolers, bait, a loaf of wonder bread, a box of Krispy Kreme donuts, and a watermelon. All fishermen and women appear well nourished; the only svelte are the chain smokers. There is a four tiered hierarchy to pier life. The lowliest are those walking the pier for amusement. Next are the Bottom fishers, lining the pier. Ruling above these are the King fishers, occupying the tee shaped dais at the end of the pier. Ruling over all is “The Management”. I moved closer to read the second set of commandments governing the King Fishers domain and realized I was in violation. No one but King Fisherman may pass the white line separating the Bottom from King fisherman territory.

Catching King Mackerel is the primary game, but any large fish seems welcome to break the seemingly fruitless pursuit, though pictures in the office indicate fish are caught. Each King Fisherman has two rods. A long rod is used to throw a special anchoring weight attached to a sturdy line. A second shorter rod has a live fish hooked at the end of its line. This line is attached to the anchor line by a breakaway system. The bait fish enticingly swims on the surface, and when a large fish takes the bait, the bait line breaks free of the anchor line. You then only have to fight the weight of the fish. The various lines radiate out from the end of the pier like spoke in a wheel.
In times past you would expect to see only south eastern North Carolinian white folks on the pier, but today there were also Hispanics and Orientals.

Our cottage is what the real estate agents now apologetically call a beach box. It is a rectangular one story structure on stilts, with three bedrooms and one bathroom. But it is right on the beach. The beach is a typical modern developed product. At low tide there is an adequate gently sloping white sand stretch, ending at the umber hued crushed shell strip at waters edge. But at astronomic high tides the waves nibble at the bases of the dune below the cottage. Attempts are made at stabilization by planting neat rows of beach grasses and sea oats on the slopes. This makes the dunes look much like the scalp of a recent hair plug recipient. The island is making plans for “beach replenishment”. They estimate it will cost landowners $65 a linear foot to achieve a 75 foot beach.

The quiet post vacation season beach is more crowded than usual due to the Labor Day weekend holiday. The National Weather Service Radio robot DJ warns monotonously of Rip Currents due to the recent brush with Hurricane Earl, and intones that “only strong surf swimmers should venture into the surf, and to heed the advice of the beach patrol”. The only patrol visible was a bandy legged casually dressed policeman, driving a chopped military surplus Humvee, issuing warnings about unleashed dogs to their owners. In the morning the shufflers, strollers, striders and grim faced joggers go past. Any demographic except African American seems represented. A woman struts past, her small bikini revealing the tramp stamp tattooed on the small of her back. There are just enough GLM’s and nubiles to keep things interesting. And for the ladies, there are the bare chested, ripped Marines. Several are staying nearby with their plump wives and girlfriends, apparently on leave. One has his name, serial number and religion tattooed discretely to his torso, a reminder that after this peaceful vacation, he likely returns to a reality involving obliterating explosions and decapitations. Oh, and yes, there are plenty of surfers.

Above the water, plunging pelicans compete for airspace with the Marines vertical takeoff and landing transport, the MV-22 Osprey, clawing its way foreword through the air with its awkward looking 38.1 foot diameter twin rotors. This airplane/helicopter hybrid killed 30 test pilots and crew during it’s on again off again two decades of development.

Just below the waves, the fall mullet migration is beginning. Millions of sleek torpedo shaped fish, from several inches to a foot long rush endlessly foreword in tight formation, sucking plankton and vegetarian detritus out of the water. They never stop moving. When netted for bait, they quickly die despite being placed in oxygenated water, and when you pick them up, they are hot to the touch from their energy expenditure. They are revealed in the thin curves of the waves, or when they explode out of the water in terror, or pieces, as the wolves of the water, the toothed bluefish, slash through their masses.
In the wave swash, mole crabs and coquinas compete for valuable wet real estate, while the ghost crabs patrol the dry beach sand. Above the beach the Laughing Gull rules, but its throne in uneasy, as the Herring Gulls are becoming more commonplace.

I go out onto the beach at night and am astounded. There are absolutely no flood lights trained on the beach. After years of failed night sky activism in Emerald Isle, I had given up seeing the Milky Way. I had applauded an acquaintance that became adept at shooting out streetlights with an air rifle. I had perfected a technique utilizing a plumber’s friend duct taped to a long pole to unscrew illuminated floodlights on unoccupied beach houses. Surf City had actually passed an ordinance to insure that excessive lighting and glare are not directed at adjacent properties, neighboring areas, motorists as well as the beachfront and/or sound front to protect the extremely sensitive turtle population. Bring back the night sky!

Traveling south to Topsail Beach moves you further back in time architecturally. Here, tired looking T1-11 plywood siding, asbestos siding, and board and batten are the choice to cover the beach boxes, unless their sins are hidden by vinyl or plastic siding. But the effect is not monotonous. There are a wide variety of colors, touches, and decorations. And the house names frequently reveal something about the owners: The Legal Pad, The Recovery Room, and The Board Room (on a house decorated with surf boards).
Still, people have built the looming Coastal Castles. These four story duplexes frequently are Caribbean colored, often sculpted of synthetic stucco. They come with a pool and elevator, and each bedroom tends to have a complete entertainment center. Imagine, you drive for hours to the beach, bask in your pool, take your elevator to your bedroom, and watch one of 500 channels on your 52” TV, all unsullied by sand or salt. The irony is as outrageous as the structures. And no one could afford to risk perching one of these multi million beach behemoths next to a rising sea without inexpensive Federal flood insurance, guaranteed by you and me. Some day we will be handing the owners or heirs a several million dollar check when the inevitable occurs. Even Jimi Hendrix knew that all “castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually”.

There is a very nice free museum, which details the island history and ecology. The island’s name originated when pirates would lurk behind the island, waiting for cargo ships. The cargo ships learned to look for the topsails of the pirates behind the island. Topsail Island was a top secret site for testing guided missiles during WWII, hence the mysterious concrete watch towers, sometimes incorporated into residential housing. And there is the story of Sun City, one of the first black owned beach developments in North Carolina, started on Topsail Beach.

For 50 years the only beach open to African Americans in North Carolina was called Freeman Beach or Seabreeze, located at the north end of Carolina Beach. It became thriving resort, nicknamed Bop City for the lively music scene. Some historians credit it with inspiring shag dancing and beach music. At Topsail Beach a white Topsail businessman teamed with a prominent black physician to try to make more beaches accessible, but not without some resistance. I’m told that some of the original owners still live in the area. Sadly, the 2000 census shows not a single person living at Topsail Beach claims to be Black.


Driving home to Charlottesville my GPS tells me I have traveled not just miles, but also gained altitude. It doesn’t take long to be high above the 7 feet above sea level at Surf City and Topsail Island. I decide I would like to go back next year. I have seen that we have made some progress in understanding the importance and rhythms of the interface between the sea, land, sky and their inhabitants. There has even been some progress in how we treat each other. But I wonder how long it will take the impatient sea to again conspire with the wind to take back the island that they together made, and wash it clean, like a born again virgin. I think I would understand, and not be sad.

Wick Hunt





I bought a '30 Ford wagon and we call it a woody
(Surf City, here we come)
You know it's not very cherry, it's an oldie but a goody
(Surf City, here we come)
Well, it ain't got a back seat or a rear window
But it still gets me where I wanna go

Refrain:And we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun
Ya, we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
Two girls for every boy

You see they never roll the streets up 'cause there's always somethin' goin'
(Surf City, here we come)
You know they're either out surfin' or they got a party growin'
(Surf City, here we come)
Well, with two swingin' honeys for every guy
And all you gotta do is just wink your eye

repeat refrain:

And if my woody breaks down on me somewhere on the surf route
(Surf City, here we come)
I'll strap my board to my back and hitch a ride in my wetsuit
(Surf City, here we come)
And when I get to Surf City I'll be shootin' the curl
And checkin' out the parties for a surfer girl

repeat refrain