Some say waves at Rockaway beach are different, better, after Sandy. Surfers cite sandbar shifts-NY Times

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4/28/13, "Waves Are Different After Sandy, and Some Surfers Say Better," NY Times, Nick Corasaniti 

"Walking down Beach 90th Street in Rockaway offers a glimpse of a neighborhood in the midst of an uphill battle: windows are shuttered, lawns are littered with debris and a beach is unprotected by its boardwalk. Yet as Rockaway slowly recovers, block by block, one crucial element is back, and, according to some, better: the wave. 

As the Eastern Surf Association held its state championship in Rockaway on Saturday — the first competition there since Hurricane Sandy led to the cancellation of October’s event — two- to three-foot walls of sea green water welled up for contestants, leftovers from this past week’s swell. 

“The exposure from the event is good for Rockaway,” said Mike Reinhardt, a Rockaway native who competed in the men’s shortboard and longboard competitions. “I like to see more businesses. More surfers. More livelihood in the area.” 

The same black-and-white pop-up tents, dotted with sponsor logos, that had littered the beach in previous contests sprung up again, offering a semblance of structure in between the concrete support Ts that used to hoist the boardwalk. 

“Having this contest here, it means everything,” said John Gutierrez, a Rockaway native and a surfer. “To get the surfers back, the kids back on the beach. It’s great. A lot of these local kids haven’t seen each other since the storm.” 

Organizers of the contest acknowledged the recovery effort, hosting raffles and accepting donations for local charities. 

But the event was as much about the surfers as it was about the wave that they came for. What was once a wave that broke directly off the jetty and rolled left has added another peak, slightly uptown, allowing for a short wave that instead rolls right. That means regular-footed surfers — those with a dominant right foot — can enjoy it. 

“Since the storm, the wave typically breaks more in the middle now, rather than at the jetty,” said Michael Kololyan, a Rockaway resident who runs Locals Surf, a surf school there. “So it’s more of like an A-frame wave in the middle of the beach.” 

Kololyan won first place in the men’s longboard division, with Reinhardt taking second. Kololyan also won the 2001 Rockaway boogie board championship. 

“I’ve seen a couple of guys starting to go right, so I guess that’s good for the regular-footers,” added Reinhardt, who is also Kololyan’s partner in Locals Surf. 

Sandbars are usually cyclical, and breaks change slightly year to year. But the sand displacement caused by Sandy changed the sandbar — and therefore the wave — more than usual this year.

Downtown, where the jetties protected the sand displacement from Sandy’s force slightly more, the wave conditions have also improved. 

“You used to go from being in knee-high water to almost neck-high water in like three, four steps at high tide,” said Frank Cullen, a longtime Rockaway surfer who runs New York Surf School in the Arverne area of Rockaway. “That incline has become much more gradual now, so we don’t have this big heavy shore break that we used to have at high tide. It’s been good through all tides.” 

But the improvements did not happen immediately after the storm. Runoff, flooding residuals and gas leaks left parts of the Atlantic off Rockaway looking and smelling like the Gowanus Canal, but with waves. “The first time I got out there was about a week after the storm, and I stayed out for just 20 minutes because the water quality was just awful,” Reinhardt said. “It actually had a funk smell to it. But then, every week after that it seemed to get better. We’re not surfing the Caribbean to start with here, but everything seems back to normal.” 

While the water is now clean, green and somewhat clear, plenty of work remains, on and off shore. Some groups are still wading through the sand and white water, doing their best to remove wood, nails, glass and other debris in time for surfers and swimmers to enjoy the area this summer. 

Two local surf institutions, the Rockaway Beach Surf Club and Boarders Surf Shop, are struggling to reopen in time for the summer season, after taking in more than five feet of water, and many residents are still piecing back together their houses. 

Yet the break remains as crowded as ever, some surfing the newly formed right, some riding the classic long left off the jetty. And, for perhaps the first time for surfers in Rockaway, the crowds are welcome."...

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