Cape Surfing

“The Cape isn’t on the way to anywhere else,” explains Cape Cod-born writer Ethan Stewart in issue 23.4. “Because of this geographic twist, out-of-town surfers have to commit to surfing the Cape roughly an hour before getting to check the waves—which makes staying on top of the fickle conditions nearly impossible. Only complicating matters, the window in which the surf actually comes together is often short, unpredictable, and always preceded by hours if not days of victory-at-sea conditions.” Whatever the strange convergence of factors, Cape Cod has preserved a close-knit surfing community—through brutal winters and tourist-filled summers. In addition to Ethan Stewart’s feature story on why people set up their lives around Cape surfing, TSJ had locally-based filmmaker Ryan Chartrand shoot this look at life on the strand from Chatham to Provincetown.