Filmer Ryan Mack spent the winter roaming around New Jersey, New York, New England, and Nova Scotia. These are the very best cold water moments from a historic winter on the US East Coast.
After a slow start to the frigid wave season, beaches from New England to North Carolina lit up in early 2018, offering some of the world's best surfers endless freezing perfection.
First came the rumors, then the evidence. Winter on the East Coast of the United States came hard and fast this past winter – but the waves didn't. Then, in February, the ocean started lighting up, and whispers of brand new waves popping up at usually overlooked beaches started swirling. The gossip was true and the East Coast was suddenly awash in perfect, freezing, never-surfed-before barrels.
Video clips hit the internet just as hard, as these new, shallow tubes were driving surfers into the bottom. Some people compared these waves to Skeleton Bay, but the truth was they were just a beautiful blip on the radar.
In the spirit of the epic highlights package, we enlisted our man on the freezing ground, Ryan Mack, to zigzag from New England to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and capture the tried-and-true tubes, as well as the new.