Jon Coen

From factory tours in snowy Japan to chainsawing pines in a blackout, Rob Kelly races home to meet one of New Jersey’s heaviest blizzard swells in years.

There have already been some wild surfing stories for the all-time annals in 2026. Parts of the East Coast offered enough winter weather adventures to fill a book.

If there were to be headline news in the Liquid Lines world, it would be that the ocean will likely hit 50 degrees in the next day or two, if it hasn’t already. We’ll dive deeper into the water temp convo below, but there are few things more important to surfers, watermen and anyone else who lives near the bay […]

It has been several years since I siphoned gas. It was in the dark early morning, tied to the dock before a November day of fishing. Siphoning was easier than lifting the big jerry can to fill the tank of my little skiff. Long story short, I took a mouthful of unleaded. It was awful. Couldn’t wash it out. For […]

Despite the fact that we needed three layers of clothing and a hot thermos to leave the house almost every morning of May on LBI, Memorial Day weekend, the “unofficial start to summer,” is here. And it does seem the “un”official seems less official each year. Falling on only the third week of May and highs in the 60s in […]

I had a kitchen full of 14-year-olds on Saturday night, laughing and crushing Pietro’s pizza, including a Grandma’s pie with vodka sauce (Oh man, so good …) when one of the kids informed me, “Dude, the po-po are here.” As a surfer, hassled since I was a teenager, my first reaction to the police is always “Oh s*#t. The cops! […]

It only makes sense that an international film festival held just steps from the sand and waves would have a decent selection of surfing films, and since the very first year, the Lighthouse International Film Festival has done just that. The festival, which runs Wednesday to Sunday at various locations around LBI, was named “One of the Coolest Festivals in […]

Who would have thought that in 2026 we’d have two weekends in a row with decent weather?! Last week’s column was all about epic swell. This week is all about epic weather. Maybe Sunday was a bit warm for some, a bit windy for others, but no complaints here. It just feels like there’s a collective feeling of relief in […]

“Most training is a sense of ‘Here’s a tool. Here’s another tool. And here’s another tool.’ But if you put it in carpentry terms, just because you know how the tools work doesn’t mean you know how to build something with them. Someone has to teach you how to make a blueprint and execute the building. This class is about […]

For both folks who live in the area or enjoy a lot of time here, there are two great ways we remember summer. The first is the classic LBI, or general shore town memories. In New Jersey, it’s a lot of sugar sand beaches, crabbing from old boats, French fries with a seasoning that makes them taste better than inland, […]