Ditch Plains Beach: Past, Present, Future

On any given summer day, Ditch Plains Beach is a caricature of every surfing archetype imaginable, dotting the sea and sand.

There are the seasoned elders, who have watched the iconic Montauk surf spot evolve since the 1950s. The see-and-wanna-be-seens bump up against the hiding hermits, whose eyes are fixed on the famous, consistent wave and not much else.

Exhausted teachers and local families hang by the rippy surf, where the lifeguards keep a close eye on their children, as they relax and rejuvenate under the sun. The wide-eyed newcomers take it all in, while certain lifelong Ditch-goers angrily gripe over their arrival.

And the cycle repeats itself.

But when the colder weather rolls in, the scene shifts. Summertime slivers of tight-knit community expand, harking back to a lost era where everyone knew everyone — a time when Montauk had barely landed on the surfing map.

“The thing about Ditch Plains that people come back to is not the wave. They come back for the people,” Montauk resident and longtime surfer Katherine King said. “Maybe some come back for the wave, but they come back for the community that folds around it.”

This past winter, though, the Ditch Plains they once knew was unrecognizable to them. A series of back-to-back storms battered the coastline, tropical storm-force winds sweeping away the beach and exposing the clay hardpan beneath.

“It’s terrible. They need sand and they need good sand,” photographer and surfer James Katsipis said. “With that being said, it does come and go. Every winter, it does that. It’s a little extreme this year. I don’t know the last time I’ve seen it like that, to be honest, in my 41 years of living here. It looks like Mars.”

Whether Ditch Plains will survive largely depends on East Hampton Town’s plan for revitalization, which includes a projected $5 million beach nourishment project that will buy time to discuss more permanent solutions, among them strategic coastal retreat, according to Kay Tyler, the executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

“It looks dire, it is dire — not so much with these three isolated storms, but the frequency in which they came, and the severity was stronger than we’ve ever seen,” she said. “And most of us believe it’s a result of global warming.”

A Different Time, a New Place

As a young boy, Bill Akin visited Montauk for the first time in 1950, riding out in the backseat of his parents’ station wagon from their home in Westhampton. The draw for his father was, simply, that it was a fishing town — “full stop,” he said.

“There were just a few people that came out here for the beach,” Akin said from his home in Montauk. “So surfing just snuck onto the landscape here. It was nonexistent before ’60 and by the end of the ’60s, it was a huge part of the Montauk scene.”

In 1956, the family bought entrepreneur Carl Fisher’s house from his widow and, eight years later, Akin picked up a surfboard. Not long after, he discovered Ditch Plains Beach — and met the surfers who called it home.

He would soon become one of them.

“I, by no means, was the first person to surf at Ditch Plains,” he said, “but I wasn’t too far off.”

At first, the long, peeling waves were a well-kept secret. And though some may consider them mediocre, as compared to bigger surf in places like California, Hawaii and the Caribbean, it’s pretty good for the East Coast — and that’s primarily due to the break’s rock bottom along the ocean floor.

“Montauk’s one of the meccas of surfing on the East Coast,” longtime surfer and hamlet resident Tony Caramanico said, “and it’s because it’s one of the most consistent waves on the East Coast.”

In 1965, a teenage Caramanico visited Ditch Plains for the first time — and came back every summer until he moved out from Amityville in 1971. He was an integral part of the surf scene from the day he arrived, Akin said, and just one of a number of men who migrated from points west and traded their home turf — Gilgo Beach — for Montauk.

“Soon the wave was a lot more crowded, but these guys made their home here and they made their businesses here and they made their families here — and a lot of them are still here,” Akin said. “Their kids and maybe even grandchildren are riding waves today.”

“They not only changed the face of surfing,” he added. “They changed the face of Montauk.”

Among them, at age 19, was Dave Nelson of Levittown. On any given Friday summer night, he and his buddies would post up at PJs in Farmingdale — a “so-called surfer bar,” he said — before hopping on Sunrise Highway, headed east. They’d sleep in the parking lot of Ditch Plains, he said, waking up ready to surf all weekend.

It came with a certain amount of risk, Akin said. Prior to the late 1960s, surfers didn’t have leashes on their boards, he noted, and if they lost them in the surf, they’d have to walk in over the barnacle-covered rocks — “it’s called a rock dance,” he said with a laugh — often emerging with banged-up heads and cuts on their bodies.

Nelson, who would go on to become an ophthalmologist, did his fair share of suturing on the beach over the years, he said — stitching up good friends to complete strangers.

“They looked alright afterwards,” he deadpanned.

The invention of the surfboard leash would come in 1971, but by then, Ditch Plains was already on its way as a surf destination. Akin draws the line in the sand at the summer of 1966. The Beach Boys were singing tunes about catching waves in California and Hawaii when the surf documentary, “The Endless Summer,” premiered in June, he said, supercharging the Montauk scene.

New arrivals joined household names like Rusty Drumm, Gene DePasquale, Roger Feit, Allan Weisbecker and, of course, Tony Caramanico in the surf, and stayed at places like The East Deck Motel, run by Alice Houseknecht. Despite its growth, the beach held onto its reputation as a family friendly spot, with young surfers coming and going — leaving Montauk to pursue careers, get married and have children — while others settled into Montauk and called it home.

“It was pretty Kumbaya. It really was — you just didn’t know any different,” Katsipis said. “But now that I’m older, I see all different types of beaches and surf community dynamics. I can tell, back then, it was something pretty special that didn’t happen all that often.”

Surf’s Way Up

On the best surf days of the late 1960s, Nelson said he could spot 20 people out in the water. Today, when there are no waves at all, there are easily 100.

“When it gets really big, that separates the men from the boys,” he said. “When it gets really big, there’s not a lot of people out. It’s just too hard to paddle out, too frightening. When it’s really, really big and really good, then it’s alright because people that shouldn’t be out there aren’t out there.”

Over the decades, the wave at Ditch Plains has adopted a pecking order of sorts — at least according to some. It starts on one end, near the jetty, where the waves are bigger and, arguably, better. That’s where the more seasoned, aggressive surfers flock, whereas farther down the beach, near Montauk Shores — where trailers now sell for millions — the smaller waves are home to beginners.

But it’s not a hard-and-fast rule, which can lead to dangerous conditions for those without a firm grasp on surf etiquette.

“I’ve been all over the world and shot some of the most dangerous waves in the world. And I say, the scariest wave ever is Ditch Plains on Fourth of July weekend,” Katsipis said. “It’s terrible. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

A faded surfers code sign near The Ditch Witch — a beachside staple since 1993 — reads, “Give respect to gain respect,” listing a series of guidelines for navigating the water. But other than that, surfers are largely on their own to figure it out.

“Some of it is a little counterintuitive,” surfer and Montauk resident John Madere said. “It’s all about being aware of other people around you and knowing who should have the right of way.”

King, when she was a broke college student in 1990, borrowed a surfboard at Ditch Plains “and that was the end of it,” she said. “I became a surfer.”

She was one of a handful of women surfing the Ditch Plains break at that time, she said, and she found support in Drumm, Weisbecker and Caramanico, whom she calls her mentor.

“They were the only three people in the water who were giving me tips and encouraging me and saying, ‘Don’t let those guys discourage you,’” she recalled.

Pro surfer Quincy Davis said she leaned on her community in the Montauk surfing scene, in between competitions, as she rose to international fame. There, on the beach, she was a hometown girl — and, looking back, it felt like a dream to grow up surfing at Ditch Plains, she said.

“I feel like it was such an amazing childhood, just biking back and forth to the beach,” she said. “It’s really special. It’s safe. The community is so awesome, it’s all ages. It’s definitely a special place.”

Today, as she raises her 5-month-old daughter, Lilou, with her husband, surfer Pat Schmidt, they hope she will be part of the next generation.

“Surfing definitely clears my mind and makes me feel really calm and joyful, and it still does,” Davis said. “And I think that it’s just always a place I’ll go to for that. And now that I just had a baby girl, I’m really excited. I hope that she likes to go in the water and surf.”

For King, Ditch is her home break, she said, and it’s also ever-changing. In the surfing world, the mass production of less expensive surfboards lowered the high barrier to entry, which brought more crowds to Montauk. The closure of the East Deck Motel in 2013 also changed the scene, Nelson said, as more year-round residences converted to seasonal rentals.

Some homeowners returned with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, pushing renters out and into the housing market, which boomed across the East End. It was the second mass exodus from points farther west, some surfers recalled — the first being the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

It was a crystal-clear day, Akin recalled, with a northwest wind that inspired some surfers to call off work and head to Ditch Plains. Some even worked at the World Trade Center and didn’t hear the news until they got out of the water, he said.

“It was a very weird scene because it was more than solemn on dry land. Everybody was overcome with the magnitude of what had happened,” he said. “But when you paddled out and you’re looking at a big wave — what we call a good-sized overhead wave — coming at you, you don’t have a lot of other things to think about.

“When you’re in the water, you are very, very much focused on what is happening right now,” he continued. “It’s a real classic present-moment situation, and people would surf and they’d be in the waves, they’d be fighting for waves and they’d be getting wiped out, and then they’d get onto the beach and it was like, ‘Oh man, what a day this is.’ It was a tremendous contrast.”

Surfing is an exercise in existing in the present moment — as a lone individual sitting atop a vast ocean. That sensation is felt across generations, from the elders down to the groms, and everyone in between, including 18-year-old champion surfer Chase Lieder.

“My mind just shuts off as soon as you get to the wave and you’re just locked in,” he said. “When you get out, you always feel better. That’s my favorite part of surfing — it rejuvenates you and there’s nothin’ like it.”

Whether he’s on his board, behind his camera — and, in some cases, both — Katsipis finds himself inspired by the Montauk bluffs at sunset, watching as the whole sky turns red.

“When I’m looking over at those cliffs, that’s when I’m like, ‘Oh my God, look where I live. This is insane. Holy cow,’” he said.

Katsipis wasn’t alone in his shock over the winter destruction at Ditch Plains. Two January storms, which hit within a week of each other, obliterated what was already a remnant of a once-broad natural dune system. Winds battered the front porch off one home, sending a river of sea water flowing into the residential neighborhood to the north.

“The way the beach is, now, the worst I’ve ever seen it in 60 years,” Nelson said. “The parking lot was destroyed, there is really basically no good beach left. Now it’s April, there’s not a lot of weeks left until the crowd comes. I’m not involved in the politics of the town, but I get the sense that we are the orphan child.”

A Fight for the Future of Ditch Plains

As part of the long-awaited Fire Island to Montauk Point beach nourishment project, otherwise known as FIMP, the Army Corps of Engineers recently deposited 462,000 cubic yards of sand on the downtown Montauk ocean beach.

None of it landed at Ditch Plains.

The reason boils down to a cost-benefit analysis, according to East Hampton Town Councilwoman Cate Rogers, and the anticipated return in tourism or economic dollars. Ditch, she said, does not technically meet the criteria — “and we’ve asked several times,” she said.

“I don’t know if I agree with that, because I don’t think they’re taking into account that it’s an iconic surfing beach known worldwide,” she said, “and I bet many of the people staying in the hotels and going to the restaurants and the shops in downtown Montauk are there because of Ditch.”

When Rogers and her fellow Town Board members saw the damage to Ditch Plains and the surrounding flooding, they immediately got to work. “We knew we needed to do something,” she said.

With the help of professor Henry Bokuniewicz of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, the Town Board developed a plan that proposed spending up to $5 million to restore the dune system and reestablish the beach at Ditch Plains by the summer season — a timeline that, last month, Rogers said may be unrealistic.

“Initially, I’d hoped that this would be done before the season,” she said. “I can’t commit to that right now, but there are a few options on whether we do the beach nourishment for the summer to have a usable beach and then look at the dunes. But both projects are going to happen as soon as possible.”

According to the Coastal Assessment Resilience Plan, the coastal revetment at Montauk Shores is “likely worsening shoreline erosion along adjacent shorelines,” Tyler noted, in addition to the impacts from climate change — such as sea level rise and increased storm severity.

The pair of projects are temporary fixes, but necessary, she said, in order to buy time to discuss longer-term options.

“Mother Nature wins,” Tyler said. “She’s gonna take over and whatever we put up there is not gonna stay. So the permanent solution is to make sure we have a solid plan in how we adjust our zoning laws. And the devil’s in the details of what we do in that: Do we move up, do we move back, is there another solution?

“We’ve, as a community, come together with the realization that we do need to work together on this.”

Though historically at odds, the environmentalists and business community in Montauk are, more and more in recent years, joining forces — and their silos are quickly disappearing, Rogers said. They’ve realized that they have the same goal, she said, which is long-term resiliency.

“We are essentially the canary in the coal mine. We’re a coastal town,” she said. “I think we cannot hide our own heads in the sand.”

For Ditch surfers, the problem is impossible to ignore. They remark on the slow disappearance of the once-prominent jetty. They eye the erosion with concern. They talk among themselves about the future of the beach — and how its condition so desperately needs a solution.

“It’s such a loved spot and it’s so special that I think that the community will really rally together to save it,” Davis said. “And I think that it has a special place in everyone’s heart who lives here.”

In the early hours on summer mornings, Lieder often hops in his car and drives to the Ditch parking lot. It’s June or July, and The Ditch Witch is still asleep. A foggy haze hangs over the surf, which is just how he likes it.

He grabs his board and runs into the sea, soaking up the solitude before the crowds arrive.

Caramanico, who’s 74, surfs Ditch every once in a while, whereas 78-year-old Nelson and Akin — who’s nearing 80 — gave up their surfing days years back.

“I’m old enough to have gotten over missing things. You can’t do it,” Akin said. “I had 50 years of surfing. That’s a lot. I’m very lucky to have had the opportunity to do that and to go the places I have. I spent a year in Hawaii, I’ve surfed Mexico, I’ve surfed all over the Caribbean. I’ve done a lot and that’s fine.”

Almost every summer day, Nelson and a group of his friends, ranging in age from 75 to 79 — “there’s a few younger guys, they’re 70,” he said — park themselves on the beach benches, and talk for two to three hours at a time. They reminisce, he said, and admire the young surfers from afar.

“It is so much fun and a vital part of our lives that, last year, when one of the benches was broken, a bunch of us chipped in money and bought a bench and put it together and put it out,” he said. “But I don’t know if it’s gonna happen this year, with all the damage, we’re all a little anxious — where are we gonna put the bench?”