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This painstakingly researched long-read was originally published a few years ago — but some things are worth resurfacing from time to time. And given that the EC hurricane season is in full swing, we figured now was the time. –Ed
This is a story of loss.
Of physical deterioration and the erosion of hope. This is a story about blood oaths and adamantine brotherhood, patience and devotion — and what happens when those values are unjustly punished. This is a story about cosmic cruelty.
But this is also a story of adventure. Of Melvillian obsession and the triumph of revelation. This is a story about natural beauty, human engineering and the turbulent intersection where they connect. About a fantastic phenomenon — a world-class oasis skirting a desert of deprivation — and all the living legends that manifest henceforth.
This is a story of a wave, a surf spot, a beachbreak so sacred, so coveted… so sick, that three generations of surfers only spoke of it in hushed tones. Encrypted hints. Aliases. This is a story of how one 300-yard stretch of undeveloped barrier island tucked under the shadow of an East Coast Mecca galvanized a backwoods community while maintaining dignity throughout its lifespan — its name never mentioned in any of the reputable media outlets that published its picture for nearly three decades.
Until now. Because this wave, this surf spot, is no more. The ghosts remain, but these ghosts are alive. Forsaken and confused, scattered and wandering the desert — their once-resplendent oasis now a decaying carcass in the sand. And while their tomorrow is uncertain, their yesterday deserves reverence.
This is the story of the East Coast’s finest beachbreak, the science that destroyed it and the men who suffer the loss.
This is the story of Shack.
“The really good swells were the hurricanes,” insists Justin Schub. “But there were so many times where we’d catch those low pressure systems that go off Georgia or Florida then move up the coast — just like a hurricane swell, only you’re dealing with five guys instead of a hundred. A lot of my best sessions were actually in the wintertime.” Photo: Brad Styron
Shackleford Banks — an uninhabited barrier island accessible only by boat skirting Carteret County, North Carolina — was once connected to the Cape Lookout National Seashore’s Core Banks until the “Outer Banks Hurricane” of 1933 produced a breach that became Barden Inlet on the easternmost part of the island. For most of its existence, Shackleford has been and still is famous for its feral “banker horses,” rumored to have descended from Spanish mustangs that fled a shipwreck. But for almost 50 years in between, Shack was known for something else.
“Shack was the best beachbreak on the East Coast, straight up,” asserts Wrightsville Beach pro Ben Bourgeois, the only North Carolina surfer in history to compete on the Championship Tour. “Obviously, there’s other insane beachbreaks that had their days [Lido Beach, Bay Head, Cape Hatteras, etc.], but none of them were a guaranteed score when conditions came together. Shack was such a thicker, taller barrel than anywhere else, and it would handle tropical swell like a champ — like a big, Baja Malibu-type swell — and it would do it every time!
However, the wave itself was more manmade than magical. Chris Freeman, PLS, Sr. Marine Geologist and President of Geodynamics, and Greg Rudolph, Manager of the Carteret County Shore Protection Office, are both longtime Shack surfers who’ve collected and analyzed a good portion of the data along Shackleford for well over a decade. They point out that a quick glance at a bathymetry chart reveals a deep channel adjacent to very shallow water on both sides that makes its closest approach to land within spitting distance of the far western end of the island. To support the Port of Morehead City, engineers dredged the channel at Beaufort Inlet from 30ft deep in 1936 to 35ft (1965) to 42ft (1978), and finally to 47ft deep in 1994. “All that manipulation captured the tidal flow and served as a catalyst for Shack to grow west towards the deep channel,” Rudolph explains, “while all that sand removal via dredging deflated and pushed out the ebb delta.”
Ultimately, all these processes created the kind of surf break that people base their entire lives around.
“Before my family even moved to Wrightsville, we had an apartment in Emerald Isle,” Bourgeois explains. “I rode my first wave there and actually surfed in the ESA-Central North Carolina District growing up. So by the time MJ Marsh took me over to Shack in his boat, I already had a relationship with locals like Eddie Crawford, Bobby Webb and, of course, Bill Roach. There wasn’t one Shack swell where I didn’t see Bill out there getting insane waves.”
“That was my honey hole for many years, man,” grins Roach, who moved to Carteret County in 1968 and started surfing Shack in the early ‘70s with its pioneers — mostly entrenched Beaufort watermen like Paul Geer. “It wasn’t until the mid ‘70s where we really started reading it and figuring out which swells worked. Paul’s family owned the Gulf Docks, and he’d load up his boat with five or six of us — Buddy Pelletier, Donald Stone, Mike Holleman, some of the old Beaufort boys — and we’d be the only people over there. Eventually, the Emerald Isle crowd started getting on it, but there were probably 20 years there where we had it to ourselves.”
“Hatteras has more waves more often” testifies Fisher Heverly. “But the way the wave at Shack came in — from a deep channel with those shoals out the back making it refract and wedge up — even if it was only head-high it felt like a bigger wave, like France or something, because it always had that wedge factor to it.” Photo: DJ Struntz
How do rise above the loss of your lifelong muse, your most faithful companion, your best friend? If your name is Fisher Heverly, you fly away for good. And once Shack disappeared, so did most of Carteret County’s best young prospects. Photo: Brad Styron
“What really got me hooked was I could hop in a boat, be over there in 15 minutes and surf great waves with just a handful of guys on this little island with wild horses, loggerhead turtles and nature all around me,” he adds. “Then I’d come back to all this hustle and bustle going on in Morehead City, and be like, ‘They ain’t got a clue.’ [Laughs.] It was like a mini-vacation.”
At least until Island Express began running ferry service over to Shackleford; after which, the local contingent expanded from the original Beaufort crew to all of Carteret County’s most decorated and dedicated surfers, while ballsy devotees like Wilmington charger Guion Lee were also given a pass. Dynasties soon perpetuated as surnames like Heverly, Marsh, Willis and Stone became synonymous with Crystal Coast surfing and its veiled crown jewel. And even though this area claimed the most thriving competitive surf scene in the state, far beyond what existed in Dare or New Hanover counties at the time, any new faces popping up at Shack were urged, if not commanded, to adhere to a strict code of silence. Especially those making moves up the professional ranks.
“I didn’t start surfing there until 1994, when it was still a secret,” recalls Emerald Isle’s Justin Schub, who enjoyed a brief pro career during the turn of the century. “The older guys wouldn’t tell a kid like me [sponsored, traveling to contests, meeting photographers].
“Dredging brings sand in and out of natural systems,” explains Dr. Stan Riggs, ECU’s distinguished Professor of Geology, of the possibility of restoring the wave. “By taking sand out of the system at Beaufort Inlet, sand that could’ve helped naturally restore the west end of Shackleford may not be there anymore.” Photo: Brad Styron
Those three peaks (Rough Point, Main Peak, Meat & Taters) were really what gave Shack its enchanting appeal. Since waves refract from deep water into shallow, the channel allowed unbridled swell to focus here while also converging with other incoming swells, promoting a distinctly peaky nature to the waves detonating off the westernmost end of the island — a similar phenomenon to what you’d find at canyon breaks like Blacks Beach or Puerto Escondido. Shack looked, and rode, more like Hossegor than Hatteras. Add crystal-clear, tropically charged green water, and Shack became a preferred target for anyone who caught wind of it. Even as Atlantic Beach’s original pro surfer, Buddy Pelletier, traveled for contests and forged relationships with the Eastern elite, his new buddies got a gag order like everyone else.
“Beaufort Inlet was notorious, with a really treacherous current and just the gnarliest crossing,” says Ben Bourgeois. “You’d see anchor lines snapping, boats flipping, all kinds of crazy shit. I’ve seen five-foot standing waves barreling inside of that inlet.” Photo: DJ Struntz
“Buddy started bringing Matt Kechele, Pat Mulhern and that Florida crew up here, but they were really respectful of the place, and they never talked,” Roach remembers. “And Doug Waters [Surfing Magazine staff photographer-turned-East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame inductee], an old New Bern boy who surfed Shack with us back in the day, was doing a lot of surf photography back then, and even though he had pictures of Shack published, he never said a word about it.”
Neither did the burgeoning tabloid, Eastern Surf Magazine. During the last days of slide film submissions in the early 2000’s, ESM received binder after binder of epic Shack shots from vagabond local Donald Stone, lovable Carolina Beach lensman Robbie Johnson and fast-rising Wilmington photographer DJ Struntz. And while these images often took up a lion’s share of their annual hurricane issues, editors always attributed legacy terminology to honor local sentiment, “Raleigh Bay” being the most popular. Similarly, the video boom of the late ‘90s/early ‘00s reeled in the Shack footage, from blockbuster …Lost movies like The Decline to fringe culture flicks like The Dirty South, Back to the Front and Always Right. Yet Shack still retained its anonymity, at least in cold, hard print. This was almost completely due to the fact that the historical stronghold of East Coast tuberiding, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, hijacked most of the attention. For filmmakers and editors it was simply easier, and safer, to dub an entire segment or feature, “Outer Banks.” Naturally, Shack locals preferred it that way.
But, like they say, “loose lips sink ships.” And with advancements in ferry operations, then cell phones, then the Internet, by 2003 outsiders caught on to Shackleford, where it was and what made it tick. Not like the code was all that tough to crack — S swells, N/NE winds — but anyone who bothered was usually confronted by a stunning revelation:
This was not the Outer Banks. This was much, much better.
While they’re more exposed, south-facing spots on Hatteras Island lack the bathymetry to handle long-period energy, often resulting in one big closeout during significant swells. Under similar circumstances, Shack presented perfect A-frames (albeit mostly lefts), and it was always bigger than surrounding areas, even during piddly, short-period SSW windswell events that hung around offshore high pressure in the summer, and ahead of cold fronts in the winter. However, it was those mid to longer-period SE and S swells from otherwise frightening tropical systems that gave Shack its board-breaking, mind-blowing reputation, as those swells extended deeper into the ocean than short-period swells, thus better realizing the benefits from the deep-water channel in Beaufort Inlet.
Idealized arrows represent incoming SSE swell and the focusing that occurred on the west end of Shackleford Banks, when it was adjacent to the deep channel that was dredged several times over the years to support the Port of Morehead City. The proximity to the deep channel prior to 2013 is what made the wave so good. The blue and purple colors represent relatively deep water while the yellow, orange and reds represent shallower water. Image: Geodynamics
“Hatteras is usually a lot of reforms,” Bourgeois explains, “where you have to find just the right bar, sit out there all day, and maybe get two or three. Shack was a machine, so consistent, and it always had good shape. It would jack up a head-high nugget into a standup barrel, but it would hold double to triple-overhead surf. Even after word got out and it started getting a little crowded, it was rarely an issue. I always felt like there was never a shortage of waves. And once it got big, it really packed a punch. Eventually you had to get out and walk back up the beach or else you’d get washed into the inlet. It was like this recycling center.”
By 2005, Outer Banks surfers stopped doing the “Frisco Disco” entirely and started booking hotel rooms at the Beaufort Inn, while sponsored entourages from Virginia to Florida rushed toward this new petri dish of photogenic stoke. Blend that with a rather iconoclastic indigenous culture, and a little hostility was inevitable. The “redshirts,” a tight band of Shack fixtures who wore red t-shirts to symbolize their local supremacy, began making their presence known during the more hyped swell events.
“I don’t know about hostility,” says Fisher Heverly. “I saw arguments, frustrated locals being territorial and all that. But for the most part, you’re walking down the beach and everyone’s just smiling and having a good time. It was always a positive vibe over there.” Photo: Aaron Chang
“I understood it, because Shack was such a good place to photograph,” says Roach. “You’d be standing on the beach and all three peaks would break right there. You knew right where to sit, and as long as you made it to the bottom, you were gonna get barreled, on any type of board. So a couple of the old Shack boys did the redshirt thing for awhile. They were very vocal and would give somebody shit in a heartbeat if it came to it, but what’s funny is some of ‘em ended up running their own ferry services to Shack [laughs]. Localism incidents were actually few and far between.”
“When it was really popping off and people started coming to shoot photos, the scene was still pretty mellow,” Bourgeois recalls. “Almost no one was camping out then, and the ferries only ran from 8am to 5pm, and they wouldn’t run at all during a big storm. So that really kept the crowd down. Meanwhile, the locals would rent boathouses and dock up behind the island for days. Everyone respected the rules: ‘Tread lightly. Don’t bring a bunch of people. Don’t tell anyone where you’re at.’ I wouldn’t even tell my best friends! And since I never had a boat, only a jet-ski, I couldn’t bring anyone anyway [laughs]. If you were really on it and camping overnight, you could surf those early mornings and late evenings before and after the ferry carried hordes of people. So you’d have hours of primetime Shack with only a few surfers in the water. Tide gets good, ferry comes, everyone leaves, and you get that magic hour before dark, and the next morning, too. That happened all the time — not just once or twice, but almost every swell.”
What used to be a wide swathe of beachfront blanketed by 15-foot-high sand dunes is now the “active zone of transport,” otherwise known as “Beaufort Inlet,” otherwise known as “the ocean.” As sand continues to march into the channel, local thrill-seekers like Kiley Hanford must venture elsewhere for their fix. Photo: Brad Styron
Justin Schub. Photo: Brad Styron
While sneaky low pressure systems and nameless ramped-up windswells provided their own mystique, the more memorable Shack swells were largely tropical events: Isabel (2003), Hanna (2008), Earl (2010) and Debby (2012) being the most publicized; all of which produced strong SE, S, or SW winds inside the ideal 140-degree swell window extending between Cape Lookout and Anguilla. However, Shack’s unique bathymetry greeted energy generated outside of that window, too. Most of Shack’s best swells were in the 5-10’ at 12-17s range from 180-140 degrees, Isabel a notch bigger at its peak. But it was Debby, perhaps, that best exemplified Shack’s magic. A shorter-period event from the SSW, 6-10ft at 8-10s from 190 degrees (a pretty common occurrence here, especially ahead of wintertime fronts), Debby was more publicized because it happened during the peak summer season, and it was a named storm.
Debby was also special in that it was pretty much Shack’s swan song. While the demise of the spot cannot be attributed to any single deathblow, the dune failure and erosion that occurred during Hurricanes Irene (2011) and Sandy (2012) certainly played a part, throwing a veritable one-two punch to knock it down and out. Maybe forever. “Just as that deep channel forced the western end seaward, the island grew so extensively that it ultimately collapsed into the channel, leaving it vulnerable to storms,” Rudolph explains. “Once the island migrated into the fixed channel, that led to slope failure, which caused massive recession and also allowed the west tip of the island to be compromised during Irene and Sandy.”
In short, while maintaining that deep channel inside Beaufort Inlet helped give birth to Shack, it was also partially to blame for its death. Similarly, just as hurricanes put Shack on the radar in the 2000s, they were also what helped obliterate it a dozen years later.
“It’s like losing a best friend,” Roach whispers. “I knew that beach like the back of my hand. Now, I barely even look at it anymore. I try not to dwell on the past, I mean, I’ll surf anything. But a bunch of the old Shack diehards are really over it, they ain’t gonna surf slop.
I haven’t done contests in the last couple years, but looking at the results from Easterns and talking with [retired ESA-CNC District director] Beth Schub, it seems like the talent level has definitely slowed down in Carteret County.”
Hunter Heverly. Photo: Brad Styron
In fact, most of the area’s best surfers, particularly the prized young guns, have totally fled the scene. Chris Morris, Erik Schub and Lucas Jolly all relocated north to the Outer Banks. Hunter and Fisher Heverly relocated south to Wilmington. Casey Goepel moved to Hawaii. While any number of educational, social, or vocational opportunities played a part in the exodus, losing a lifelong muse like Shack made the decision a no-brainer.
“I’d still live in Emerald Isle if Shack was still there,” admits Fisher Heverly, arguably the most successful Carteret County surfer since Buddy Pelletier. “Everyone in town is just shaking their heads at the loss. There’s nothing positive about it, I don’t even go back home to surf anymore. Growing up, that wave was something our whole community had to look forward to, something to make all our lives a little better. We waited all year for those epic days where our parents would pull us out of school to go surf over there.
Guion Lee. Photo: Matt Lusk
“I’ve never fully recovered from it,” confesses Justin Schub, who unlike many of his peers has remained in the area. “I bought a houseboat strictly for those three-day Shackleford missions, and the year I got the thing, Shack closed its doors. Since then, I’ve been doing more extensive searching in the area, scouting other barrier islands with Kevin Day. I hate to say this, but there are no greener pastures.”
While Carteret surfers lament the loss, every bit as devastated as those orphaned by First Peak or Killer Dana, satellite images from 1946 illustrate that Shackleford Banks has actually been through this scenario before, casting a glimmer of hope that the wave might reappear one day. Only this time, it feels different.
“It all has to do with the shoal that’s just offshore,” explains Chris Freeman. “It’s probably pretty flattened out by now, but that’s the key to Shack coming back. But here’s the thing: we have no new input of sand. It’s all dammed up. As soon as you put sand into 50ft of water, it’s gone. Lost in the system. That will make it very challenging for Shack to return to how we knew it during its prime surf years.”
But inlets are incredibly dynamic places. The causes of Shack’s disappearance are a complicated mix of natural and manmade processes, plus more than a few unknowns. But there is hope in the form of: A) a jetty that could capture the sand before it flows into the channel; unlikely, due to National Park Service regulations; or B) a storm that could redistribute the sand, allowing the western end to come back.
“No matter how you cut the mustard, it’s all about the storms,” says Dr. Stan Riggs, ECU’s distinguished Research Professor/ Professor of Geology. “Storms can bring 15-20ft of sea level change in a few hours and storms are capable of driving incredible volumes of sand. That alone has the potential to do significant things to Beaufort Inlet and, thus, have an impact on the dynamics at Shack.”
In the meantime, Shack refugees will find a new diversion. They will fish more, hunt more. They will surf a shittier wave out front, or travel abroad. Or maybe they will channel that phantasmic seafaring spirit that first revealed Shackleford Banks as a surf spot to Beaufort watermen a half-century ago, using crude vessels and celestial navigation to discover unburied treasure somewhere between that last finger of sand and the horizon. Or perhaps such a quixotic quest would do nothing more than bequeath impetus to their grandchildren, or their great-grandchildren, stoking their fire whenever Shack 2.0 resurfaces.
Then again, you can’t count on future generations to keep a secret like the old boys.
Aerial shoreline analysis showing the island’s recession from 1998 to 2016. From 1998 to 2013, the island was relatively stable with near normal erosion/accretion patterns. However, from 2013 to present day, the island has eroded very quickly in an easterly direction and is nearly back to the 1946 shoreline configuration. Image: Geodynamics
“Fifty years from now, the Port of Morehead City isn’t going away,” says Dr. Riggs. “It’s a huge player in the future of Beaufort Inlet. Maintaining the deep channel to compete in the world shipping market will lead to more dredging out of the natural system, and could eventually lead to a jetty.” Could a jetty reanimate the wave at Shack? Possibly. Would it be the same as how locals like Todd Martin remember it? Not likely. Photo: Aaron Chang
“At least Shack went out on top, disappearing right around the time social media was blowing up,” says Bourgeois. “It would probably be a nightmare nowadays, to tell you the truth. With Instagram and geotags and stuff, it might bum me out to see what it could’ve turned into. But in Shack’s day, man, I would’ve sacrificed anything for those times. I know people who lost girlfriends, wives, jobs, whatever it took. When Shack was on, Shack came first, sometimes for days on end.”
“When you’re on Day Three of marathon barrels, you’re burnt to a crisp and your eyes are just bleeding out of your head, then you’re camping out under the stars drinking beers and eating deer burgers with the boys… I mean, I’ve been all over the world many times, and there’s nothing I can compare that feeling to.”
“Not on the East Coast. Not anywhere.”
Fisher Heverly. Photo: Brad Styron
This feature was written with Mark Willis
And Surfline extends additional thanks to our friends at Geodynamics for the hard data and intensive research. For a more comprehensive scientific analysis and timeline of Shack’s disappearance, see the story map here.
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