I had been coming to the Outer Banks since I was a teen-ager. As surfing has grown in popularity, the ESA s Outer Banks membership has swelled from 185 in 1995 to more than 400 this year. It has also become more family oriented. When I started in the association, parents used to drop their kids off at the beach and leave them for the day, says Julie Hume, who is co-director along with her husband. Now the parents stay.
Families arrive at the competition with their children, dogs, coolers and beach chairs.
Many of them make it a daylong activity. The Barnes family has three generations of surfers. I started surfing when I was 35, says Betty Barnes. My kids were teens, and I had to watch them on the waves. She taught Rex how to surf on a long plank board.