Event featuring music, film to promote surfing exhibit

On Saturday, July 13, Museum of the Albemarle opened its newest exhibit, “Where the Waves Break: Surfing in Northeastern North Carolina.”

Surfing has been around for some time and has roots in Polynesia. In North Carolina, surfing was first documented in 1909 along the southern coastline. Then in the 1920s, the northern coastline of North Carolina started to experience the surfing wave.

What began as a sacred activity for Indigenous islanders has become a mix of cultures all its own. Surfers have now ridden waves for more than a hundred years.

Surfers see surfing differently: they see it as everything from a profession to a hobby to a therapeutic activity to a mechanism for raising awareness about causes.

The Outer Banks is known to have the best waves. The curved coastline and ocean swells from the north to the southwest create excellent surfing conditions. High-pressure systems, hurricanes, and nor’easters also bring favorable surfing conditions.

The waters off Hatteras Island are a mixture of warm and cold water. Shifting sands craft sandbars, affecting the breaking points for waves. Surfers seek out spots that include the “S” curves at Rodanthe, the jetties at Hatteras, the areas near shipwrecks, and spots along piers.

The “Where the Waves Break” exhibit at Museum of the Albemarle features objects including surfboards, trophies, competition jerseys, a wetsuit, a life jacket, a surf jacket, and surf wax. Visitors may view images and surfboards from local surf shops as well as some loaned by regional surfers.

The exhibit in fact would not have been possible without surfers, surf shops, photographers, surfboard-making companies, and other organizations and individuals who assisted with research, artifacts, quotes, and images.

To highlight the exhibit, the museum will collaborate with Elizabeth City Downtown, Inc., RCE Theaters, and the GSN Global Surf Network on Tuesday, July 30, to put on an event at Mariners’ Wharf Park featuring live music and a screening of “The Endless Summer,” a 1966 documentary about surfing.

Starting at 6 p.m., enjoy live music provided by Lucky 757 of Portsmouth, Virginia. The band will take you on a trip back to the days of hot rods, drive-ins, sock hops, poodle skirts, and pompadours. You’ll be dancing and singing along to all the hits you know and love by Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Dion, The Drifters, Smokey Robinson, The Surfaris, and so much more!

Then at 8:30 p.m., enjoy a free screening of “The Endless Summer.” Bruce Brown’s documentary highlights the adventures of two young American surfers, Robert August and Mike Hynson, who travel to Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, and California — all in search of that perfect wave that may be forming over the next horizon. “The Endless Summer” is not rated and has a run time of 95 minutes.

So grab your lawn chair or blanket and head to Mariners’ Wharf Park at 200 South Water Street to enjoy an evening of free music and a movie. You can either have dinner beforehand at one of the downtown restaurants or pubs, or bring a picnic along with you to the park.

In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held on the portico of the Museum of the Albemarle at 501 South Water Street.

We hope to see everyone on Tuesday, July 30, at Mariners’ Wharf Park.