New Smyrna Beach Inlet’s High-Performance History

Spot Lore is Surfline's monthly series that goes deep into the history and culture of some of the world's most iconic breaks. Next month: The Piers of the Outer Banks

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There are two types of surfers who attend Surf Expo, Orlando's half-a-century-old, biannual tradeshow and the most titanic surf industry gathering on the East Coast since the show took over the Orange County Convention Center in 1988. There are those who come to do business, indulge brands, party their faces off or pick up a sponsor.

Then there are those who can't wait to get the hell out of there and go surf. Nine times out of ten they'll beeline it for New Smyrna Beach, the high-performance capital of the East Coast.

Surfers have always called the south side of Ponce de León Inlet New Smyrna Inlet, NSB Inlet, or just "The Inlet," since it's kinda the only game in town. It's the likeliest beach along Florida's entire 1,350 miles of coastline to have a rideable wave, even when it's flat everywhere else. But beyond being the state's only real sure thing, the Inlet is arguably its most rippable, too. Peaky roll-ins, bowly transitions and barreling reforms reveal themselves with even the slightest hint of swell.

NSB Inlet is the original "like a skatepark" before wave pools hijacked the simile. Naturally, a spot like that, in a state like this, will produce really, really good surfers. The average surfer here surfs better than most sponsored surfers anywhere else in Florida. And the good ones? World-class. Era-defining. And lifelong.

Freesurfing savants and competitive marksmen. Pro dynasties and big-wave exports. Passionate photographers and diligent videographers. Master craftsmen and professional judges. Revered sales reps and retail lords and a whole solar system of fast-track grommets who will undoubtedly become pros who will eventually become legends. All wedged together in a 13-mile patch of Volusia County that, on a good day, functions as its own self-sustaining surf industry. New Smyrna Inlet is basically Hardcore Incarnate.

The Inlet's structural history has a lot to do with that. Originally dubbed "Mosquito Inlet" for the swarms of biting insects that greeted early European explorers, it was renamed Ponce de León Inlet in 1928 to attract visitors. Between 1968 and 1972, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a pair of 4,000-foot rubble-mound jetties flanking a dredged navigation channel. Beyond stabilizing the pass, those stone fixtures funneled marine life into the channel - which helps explain the famously high concentration of sharks - and channeled the tidal flow that makes the wedgey, peaky waves that have nourished an entire culture for over 50 years and counting.

When the original surfing boom spread up and down the East and Gulf Coasts, the Inlet was already more than a pitstop between the surf hubs of Daytona and Brevard - it was the perfect platform for NSB pioneers like Charley Baldwin and Kem McNair to hone their championship skills. Even back then, there were always waves. And everyone surfed good. When the Shortboard Revolution ushered in less length and more fins, beachbreak surfing never looked cooler, and the Inlet's true potential was revealed.

"Everything really started happening here around 1976, when we started having professional surfing events at my NSB Inlet beach concession," said Baldwin, founder of iconic Flagler Avenue shop Inlet Charley's Surf Shop and CB Surfboards, and an inductee of both the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame and the International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame. "All these teams would show up at the Inlet to compete every month: Ocean Avenue, Mad Dog, Natural Art, Spectrum, Rainbow… Then, Dick Catri and John Griffin put their pro series together with events in Brevard and Volusia, and competition was fierce. That's what really created the whole atmosphere here. This place was high-performance right off the bat."

On land, a robust boardbuilding scene complemented the exploding talent: Nichols, Creation, M.C.G., Lucas and West Surfboards… "All the factories had their own retail stores, which supported the magazines, which supported the team guys and the shops, and there was a ton of promotion," Baldwin continued. "Shapes were evolving, too, twin-fins, thrusters, quads, five-fins…"

With the break arguably in its bathymetric heyday, experimentation was nonstop. Leon and Jimmy Johnston were among the first Inlet surfers to make the transition from outside rollers to inside ramps. Sometimes reluctantly.

"To many of us older locals, a lot is gone," Leon said before his death in 2016. "For one thing, the Inlet's changed. It's still a great break, but it was just fantastic back when it used to break out at Shark Shallows all the time. They used to have a lot of big events here, and when the Bronzed Aussies came here in the early '80s, it was September and the swell was incredible. We had people come from all over the world and say the Inlet was as good as anywhere they'd been. That may be a bold statement, but it's true."

That little bit of stardust, plus some newfound pride in their homebreak, compelled the locals to respond with exports of their own. Raised in the Bahamas as a competitive swimmer - even qualifying for the 1980 Summer Olympics before the U.S. boycott - Greg Geiselman moved to NSB in 1982 and climbed three distinct ladders: the notoriously shark- and shredder-infested Inlet food chain; the budding East Coast circuit that became the short-lived ASP-East Tour, where local pro Steve Anest was already excelling; and Florida's expansive boardbuilding culture. By decade's end, Geiselman was the consummate pro surfer/shaper. And he hadn't even been bitten by a shark yet.

"There have always been good surfers in New Smyrna, but they never wanted to put in the effort to chase down the photographers, because it was better here most of the time," said Geiselman, owner/operator of Orion Surfboards. "You had to earn your way in and respect your elders. Terry Presley, Ross Pell, and all these guys before me were super competitive and ripped hard, and the shapers here, like Randy Richenberg and Charley Baldwin, surfed really well, too. There's a certain respect they've earned."

That local pecking order was set before two events threw a spotlight on the peaky paradise: Surf Expo, which'd been burying the Sunshine State in a flash flood of action sports spectacle since 1976, and the Aloe Up Cup, which crashed NSB Inlet in 1988 with overhead surf, topnotch promotion, thousands of suntanned fans, and all the best surfers on the planet, from Tom Carroll to Sunny Garcia. Impressionable Inlet rats like Shannon "Hopper" Eichstaedt soaked up their celebrity like a sponge.

"Sunny Garcia once told me the Aloe Up was the best event he'd ever been to in his entire life," Hopper said. "He loved this place, driving around in a Corvette with Martin Potter, hanging with everyone, all stoked on the waves. To hear that from a top guy like Sunny just blew me away."

When the ASP-East fizzled in the early 1990s, Surf Expo picked up the slack with a biannual influx of surf stars and the network that supported them: company owners, team managers, sales reps, and the photographers and videographers on their trails.

Looking for an Eastern outpost for his iconoclastic San Clemente, CA-based company …Lost Enterprises, Florida-born visionary Mike Reola immediately targeted NSB, enlisting clothing reps like David Chambers and Joe Surbaugh; video jockeys like Pat "Tupat" Eichstaedt, Casey Collins and John Perkins; and ultra-radical teenage mascots like Hopper and, later, Aaron "Gorkin" Cormican. Hopper had already packed bigger barrels in Hawaii, California and Mexico than most Floridians could fit in a lifetime, and his brother Tupat had the clips to prove it - putting the Eichstaedts in the illustrious company of the Lopez brothers, Cory and Shea, at home, and the Irons brothers, Andy and Bruce, in Hawaii.

That doesn't discount what the homegrown hustlers did for the crew, though.

"Clay Lyles, Jimmy Lane, Jimmy Johnston, all those guys opened the doors for guys like me, Ron Hope, and Steve Anest to be able to stay involved in the industry through repping or shaping," said Joe Surbaugh. "The kids under us started seeing that surfing could really take care of you. Maybe we helped it along a bit, but I have to say, the biggest influence in this town was Gorkin, who's the most exciting surfer to come from New Smyrna Beach, ever. Once the …Lost videos started giving him the recognition, he stepped it up and motivated everybody. He opened everyone's eyes to what was possible for a surfer coming from here."

Before he stuck the first-ever "Gorkin Flip," before he helped his squad win the X-Games, before he was crowned Airshow World Champion, before dozens of East Coast pro victories including the Landshark Pro in his hometown - Aaron Cormican was on a roll. Almost as soon as he accepted his destiny, he made pro surfing his own - from the movies to the mags to the contests, in that order. An indignantly outspoken if not self-deprecating busboy, Cormican saw himself as nothing more than a blue-collar byproduct of a celluloid experiment concocted by …Lost's founders and his hometown filmers Casey Collins, Pat Eichstaedt, and of course, his best friend, John Perkins.

Meanwhile, Reola's business partner, Mayhem Surfboards shaper Matt Biolos, forged closer ties with NSB's boardbuilders.

"In September 1998, I kidnapped Andy Irons and we drove to NSB after the Surf Expo," Biolos said. "We stayed a week at Hopper's house with his parents, bunk-bed style. Dave Chambers put the word out that I was shaping customs at Randy Richenberg's factory and we got about 20 orders. I hand-shaped boards all week and met most of the local crew. We had a great time."

Biolos' impact on the local shaping community was seismic.

"In one shot Matt Biolos really influenced how I shape a surfboard," said Randy Richenberg. "Toward the end of his stint here I watched him shape a board and it was like watching Edward Scissorhands - shit's flying in 50 different directions and all of a sudden, it just melts into this unreal-looking board. I'd never seen anything like it."

…Lost/Mayhem quickly became the T-shirt, trucker hat, bumper sticker and surfboard brand du jour for much of Volusia County - from rats to rippers to reps. Still, by the turn of the century, local vehicles ruled NSB traffic, as seasoned shapers like Bill McGill and Jonny Rodgers were joined by younger foam mowers like Mike Luke and Craig Cronin.

That set the stage for the densest, most dynamic generation of surfers NSB Inlet had ever produced, from contest titles to ad campaigns to cover shots to video parts, at a time when the industry was in full swing: Jeremy and Caleb Johnston, Nils and Noah Schweizer, Eric and Evan Geiselman, Amy Nicholl, Lindsey Baldwin, Wes Cich, Dylan Feindt, Liam Michelbrink and Devon Tresher, and right on their heels, supergroms Daniel and Matthew Glenn, among others. NSB got so stacked, people started wondering why they hadn't heard of this crew before. …Lost even mocked the surfing world's ignorance with its hilariously subversive ad campaign, "Nobody Knows, Nobody Cares."

Hopper, Shea, Gorkin, Cory and Beschen light up the Inlet, circa 2000's. Vid: Tupat, Hopper; music: The Saint Cecilia - "Terracotta Walls"

"Part of the strength of that area is that you had three generations of guys surfing together," said Reola. "There was the old pecking order with Reese Lewis, Ronnie Hope, Joe Surbaugh and Steve Anest running things, then you had really good kids like Cormican, JJ, Eric, Evan, Nils, Hopper and Devon benefiting from that environment."

"The main reason it took so long for us to get recognition is we're kind of a backwoods town," said Tresher. "Everyone's low-key here, and we like it that way. We like being the guys who show up at the contests and blow up when nobody's expecting anything from us. We thrive on that, being the underdogs and coming out on top."

At least two local prodigies were spared that underdog rep from the start - Greg Geiselman's sons, Eric and Evan, who took the Orion logo to new heights in the '00s. The ESA, NSSA and Surfing America barely had time to emblazon the boys on their propaganda before the brothers won everything, outgrew the minor leagues and went pro. Their ascension was so swift, the surfing world barely had time to process their futuristic maneuvers - much less where they hailed from.

"In the past, the media was always down south in Brevard, so you'd never hear about the guys up here," Greg Geiselman added. "That obviously changed with Cormican and the boys going out on the road to prove themselves. Then with such emphasis on the amateur ranks, and Jeremy Johnston and my sons doing well, the sponsors were taking notice of this area. That drove this new crew to want to travel and get out of here to make a name for themselves."

It also drew people who'd already made a name for themselves, like Virginia Beach pro surfer-turned-surf-tripping pilot Michael Dunphy, to move here permanently. Who could blame him? Rideable every day, warm most days, and close to an international airport where a two-hour flight will dump you at any number of Caribbean or Central American hotspots - a young pro couldn't ask for a better home base.

Perhaps the most alarming thing about this place is that, despite churning out overachievers in every facet of surf culture, as of 2026 New Smyrna Beach has never had a representative on either the men's or women's World Championship Tour, unlike so many Sunshine State neighbors (Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Flagler, Ormond, Brevard). To be fair, Evan Geiselman came pretty damn close.

"New Smyrna is such a great place, and there's waves every day, so it's easy to get stuck in the town," said Eric Geiselman. "Lack of motivation and drive can hold a lot of guys back. Luckily, being born into a surfing family and having our dad as our shaper gave me and Evan that moral support."

But between the decline of surf media in the early 2020s (from magazines to websites to social media to AI), the post-pandemic boom of surf schools, wave pools and COVID babies, and the cannibalization of a once-core industry despite the WSL and Olympics' mainstream magnetism - "World Tour surfer" may not carry the prestige it once did. "Inlet Core Lord," on the other hand, is still something to aspire to.

And while the vibe on the beach today may seem more Beach Boys ("Everybody's gone surfing") than Bad Brains ("Don't bother me"), out in the water the Inlet lineup remains distinctly Darwinian. The best surfers get the best waves. Same as it ever was.

By the mid-2020s, NSB's best and brightest saw the writing on the wall and found other ways to keep the dream alive. Cormican drew inspiration from his late father Dale, started shaping, and moved to Nicaragua to run his blossoming business in a tropical paradise even more consistent than his beloved Inlet. Nils Schweizer borrowed a page from Hopper's book, relocated to Mainland Mexico, and spent the rest of his young manhood packing quadruple-overhead cathedrals at the deadliest beachbreak on Earth.

Nils' younger brother Noah took the rep route, like so many of his Inlet forefathers, while producing well-"liked" content on the regular. Jeremy Johnston took his loyalty to the next level, becoming a sort of civic spokesman while doing marketing consultancy for his brand, NSB Inlet. Eric Geiselman added a foil to his supremely tricked-out quiver and morphed into one of the most radical pro surfer-foilers in the country. And Evan did the same thing, only with a pole instead of a foil, and started traveling the world with an enviable new job title: Professional surfer-fisherman.

At the time of writing, they're all still ripping at a ridiculously high level. They're all still making a living doing it. And they all still attribute every ounce of their success to the characteristics - and the characters - of New Smyrna Inlet. A place that wears the statistically proven "shark bite capital of the world" tag, despite fine print noting zero fatalities and mostly minor bites. Where hotel and condo development and an already-aggravating tourist population of Orlando weekenders and Northeastern snowbirds haven't dented its backwoods, blue-collar charm. Where driving on the beach with a stocked cooler and a bed full of surfboards and fishing gear remains one of the most coveted American beach experiences.

A place where you're likely to see the best surfing you've ever seen at a beachbreak. And where the best surfers are, more often than not, the ones who live here.

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Resources: Live Cam/Forecast | Florida Travel Guide

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BONUS VIDEOS:

Wave Faces: Lily May Whatley

Eastbound and All Around: 2010 Hurricane Larry super session at NSB.