Surf’s Up in Cleveland

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  12.11.06 | 3:20 PM ET

imageWhile we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic surf movie “The Endless Summer,” the New York Times is profiling the quirky—some might say completely unhinged—surfers in Cleveland, Ohio who ride waves in freezing Lake Erie even as icicles stick to their wetsuits. In short, people who could benefit from a truly endless summer. “Cleveland surfers believe they are the last remnants of the original surf culture in the 1940s and ‘50s, when surfing was still a renegade sport of social misfits who scouted virgin breaks, surfed alone and lived by a code of friendliness to newcomers and respect for the water,” writes Christopher Maag. “They keep their best surf spots secret. They consider themselves part of an underground society. And they hope to keep it that way.”