Where champions are made? Photo: Joe Grottola
The Eastern Surf Association’s annual championship event, known simply as Easterns, is more than a regional surf tournament; more than the conduit of pioneers like Greg Loehr and Mike “Oppy” Oppenheimer; more than the breeding ground of megastars and world champions Lisa Anderson and Kelly Slater. Easterns is all of those things, to be sure, and those accolades would be enough to collapse the sturdiest of trophy mantles. But the fact is, Easterns is more – Easterns is a living, breathing, roaring display of surfing’s future.
One way we forge the future is by honoring the past. Another way is by relishing the present. This year’s group of fierce competitors did both in early autumn when they gathered at Jeanette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, to scrap it out amidst the favorable swell lingering from Hurricane Lee.
Many competitors, like South Carolina native Georgia Brown, have surfing in their blood. Her mother, Jenny, also shined at Easterns as a youth, capturing the championship title in 2004, before opening a surf school in Folly Beach.
Could Sweet Georgia Brown be next to storm the CT? Photo: Dick “Mez” Meseroll//ESM
So although Georgia appeared to come from out of the blue, having missed last year’s regionals due to a family matter, it came as no surprise to folks who know the Browns to see her capture the Girls U16 title, place second in Girls U18, and make it to the finals in Women’s Longboard U18.
What likely did surprise them, along with everyone else on the beach, was her fearless air attempt in the final round of the U16 division, which she stomped, landing her a score of 8.00 and punctuating her title run.
“I had nothing to lose,” she told me, when I questioned her audacity in a moment when many would have played it safe to secure a solid score. “You had the final heat to lose!” I replied, incredulous. “Yeah, but I was losing,” came her reply.
Never mind that it was early in the heat; never mind that only a handful of airs had been attempted, men or women, in the entire tournament – she saw the inside section wall up perfectly and was prepared to take destiny by the leash. And she did.
Georgia was not the only young lady to show glimpses of what many must have seen when they witnessed current WSL World Champion Caroline Marks surf at Easterns not long ago.
Eleven-year-old Estorya “Story” Martinez dazzled on the shortboard and the log throughout the four-day event. Hailing from Virginia Beach, where she frequented Sandbridge to surf since age four, Story exhibited a range of skills and a fiery competitive nature.
At 4’8” tall, female and male competitors may have overlooked her at the outset of the tournament. But when she finished first in Girls U12 on the shortboard, took second in Junior Women’s Longboard U18, and made it to the semifinals against all genders in the Open Longboard and Menehune Longboard events, her talent was only to be appreciated.
On the men’s side, Kyan O’Roarke loomed over the rest. By age two, the lad from St. Augustine, Florida, had surfed Indonesia and lived in Costa Rica, and during this year’s Easterns, his worldly talents came to full fruition.
Heat after heat, O’Roarke justified commentator Travis Ajay’s remark that he was the most “in-form surfer of the division.” Along with an epic championship performance against competitors of all ages in the highly touted Men’s Open, Kyan also claimed victory over a stacked field of his peers in the U16 division and second place against older competitors in the U18 event.
Kyan O’Roarke, making small surf work for him. Photo: Eastern Surf Mag
His mother, Danielle, bursting with glee and pride, revealed that Kyan had not fared as well in past years.
“But he’s been working hard – yoga, lifting weights, surfing a lot – and it’s really paid off,” she explained, gesturing to Kyan with his first place trophy and FCS/Sharkbanz Pod, the new surf-specific shark deterrent awarded to division champs.
Many of the other Florida surfers were led by coach and competitor Jason Moates, a former ESA All-Star (alongside a boy named Kelly). Together, they reminded the world that the epicenter of East Coast surfing is still situated in the Sunshine State. Of the 22 events, Florida competitors seized nine titles.
In the end, despite meteorologists predicting otherwise, the Easterns saw four days of stellar swell and outstanding talent to match it. From the Great Lakes over to Maine, down the coast to the tip of Florida, and around the Panhandle into Alabama, they all gathered in the Northern Outer Banks to honor past legends and thrive in the present.
But Georgia, Story, Kyan, and the other competitors, they also did something more: they took us roaring into the future.
