Catch a Wave

Surfing on Lake Erie? It happens.

It was the kind of day that lives mostly in Cleveland surfers’ fantasies. Pushed by the storm’s winds, water the color of chocolate milk rose 10 feet in the air before slamming onto a beach of boulders and logs. The temperature was 40 degrees and falling. One surfer, Vince Labbe, climbed onto his board only to get blown backward by 40-mile-an-hour winds.

Given its industrial past, Cleveland largely turns its back to Lake Erie, lining the coast with power plants, a freeway and mounds of iron ore to feed its steel factories. The shore is especially deserted in winter, when strong winds and waves pummel the land. In December, as temperatures dip into the 20s and ice gathers in the lake’s small coves, Cleveland surfers have Lake Erie almost entirely to themselves.

Surfing Lake Erie is basically disgusting,” said Bill Weeber, known as Mongo, 44. “But then I catch that wave and I forget about it, and I feel high all day

I'd heard about people who surf Lake Michigan when the big blows hit in November. It makes sense people would surf in Cleveland too, since it's not uncommon for large waves to arise quickly on shallow Lake Erie. Though I wouldn't care to try this myself, I feel some affinity for these guys insofar as they pursue a sport many people would think is odd and a little scary, in places and conditions most would avoid.

Cleveland surfers believe they are the last remnants of the original surf culture in the 1940s and ’50s, when surfing was still a renegade sport of social misfits who scouted virgin breaks, surfed alone and lived by a code of friendliness to newcomers and respect for the water. They keep their best surf spots secret. They consider themselves part of an underground society. And they hope to keep it that way.

You could describe a lot of fly fishermen in similar terms.