Every summer for the last eight years my wife and I have spent August on Long Beach Island - or LBI if, like us, you've got the T-shirt and the airmiles. Long Beach Island is not to be confused with Long Island, the traditional holiday haunt of the Manhattanite Vanity Fair set. Nor is it to be confused with Long Beach in California.
LBI, you see, is in New Jersey - or "Noo Joisey" as the mockers put it - and has never been particularly fashionable. Having said that, its beaches and surf are as good as any you'll find on the eastern seaboard and, to my mind, the people are far friendlier. The only thing you have to watch out for is the occasional shark, of which more in a moment.
Getting to LBI couldn't be easier. Hop on a coach at Manhattan's Port Authority or hire a car and head south on the New Jersey turnpike past Giant's stadium. You're now in Bruce Springsteen territory. In a little under two hours you'll see the sign for Manahawkin and turn off the parkway. Head north or south once you reach LBI, it doesn't make much difference. There's 18 miles of beach in either direction.
For us, the holiday begins the moment we cross the causeway and spot the Dutchman's, LBI's idea of a traditional German brauhaus complete with wiener schnitzel and sauerkraut and large waitresses in lederhosen. Then comes Ron Jon's, the best surf shop in the world, and we start counting off the townships until our destination: Ship Bottom, Surf City, North Beach ... Loveladies. Oops, too far: it's easy to lose track when you've got the top down and the hire car's switched to cruise control.
My father-in-law's beach house is in Harvey Cedars, the township before, and numbers no more than 700 residents, though those numbers tend to swell in summer.
Like most of its neighbours, his house is suspended above the road on stilts - a precaution against flooding - and boasts a huge deck perfect for barbecuing the local tuna and bluefish. The other residents always know we're coming as Jack puts out the Union Flag. The result is that no sooner have we pulled into the driveway than my children, Olivia and Max, are racing to the water with their friends - two girls and a boy who, like us, holiday on LBI with their parents every summer. That's what we like about LBI: it's a real family resort.
It wasn't always the case. In the early years of the American colony, LBI was home to a shifting population of Delaware Indian fishermen and whalers - rough-hewn New Englanders who eked out a living in the dangerous shoals off the northern tip of Barnegat (a Dutch word meaning "inlet of the breakers"). During the war of independence, it became a haven for American privateers, who used their knowledge of the bay to launch surprise attacks on passing British shipping.
It was the advent of railway travel that brought the shore within reach of a different kind of American: rich city dwellers. Soon boarding houses catering to the new leisured classes were springing up all over the island and by the 1880s LBI boasted a plethora of yacht and gun clubs as well as several luxury hotels, including the Parry House, the Oceanic and the Engleside. Most of these have now gone - today's super-rich tend to vacation in the Hamptons or else zoom right past LBI in chauffeured limousines bound for the casinos of Atlantic City.
In their place have come inns, motels and cheap holiday rentals sleeping four surfers to a room. But the Engleside Inn in Beach Haven is still there, and the history can hardly be whitewashed away. For it was within sight of the Engleside that on July 1 1916 that Charles Van Sant, a 23-year-old who'd just arrived by train from Philadelphia with his family, was attacked by a great white 100 yards from shore. Alexander Ott, a member of the US Olympic swimming team watching from the beach, saw Van Sant go under and tried to rescue him. But by the time he reached him the sea was already stained with blood and Van Sant died on shore shortly after.
Over the next 12 days, the "Jersey man-eater", as the shark subsequently became known, went on to strike three more times - a series of attacks that would inspire Peter Benchley to write Jaws.
Benchley's novel and Spielberg's film of the same name were to spook generations of Americans, and when a 17-year-old was bitten on the foot by a shark in June while surfing 50 yards out from Ship Bottom, my mother-in-law was on the phone the same evening. "Tell the children they can't go in the water this summer," she instructed us panic-stricken. It was little use our pointing out that such attacks are rare - there have been only 16 in the whole of New Jersey's history - and that all LBI's beaches have excellent lifeguards.
For me, the best time is early morning at low tide, before the lifeguards arrive, when the waves break kindly at shoulder height and roll all the way to the beach. As a late convert to surfing, I need all the help I can get. The sport is also surprisingly social - something to do with being far from shore and safety in numbers - and just as my children have struck up enduring friendships on LBI so I, as the summers have passed, have found myself welcomed into the local longboard fraternity. (I knew I'd arrived when a surfer confided to me that the waves were "softer than the underbelly of an 18-inch dawg," a phrase I have since committed to memory.)
The weather can be unpredictable, of course, particularly at the tail end of the Florida hurricane season. But when the sun is shining and you turn your head to see a school of dolphins frolicking beside you in the surf, the experience is hard to beat.
If surfing is not your thing, there are plenty of other watersports to choose from, such as parasailing, kayaking, and jet-skiing. Most of these are situated on the bay, which thanks to the narrowness of the island is never more than a quarter to half-mile walk away, though LBIers, like most Americans, prefer to drive. You can also fish for fluke and flounder or hire a boat to go crabbing - a surprisingly complicated affair, entailing much baiting and deft manoeuvring with nets.
But the real pleasure of LBI is its utilitarianism. Sure, the wealthier northern end has its share of picket fences and million dollar homes looking out to sea, but it also has miniature golf, and old-fashioned ice-cream parlours and converted sidecar diners - and if you're really pressed for cash, there's even a campsite, Holgate, tucked away at its southern tip. Unlike Fire Island or the Hamptons, none of the beaches are private, though you will be required to buy a pass on the life-guarded beaches. And even though it is generally no more than 50 yards from the dunes to the sea it never feels crowded, even at the peak of the holiday season. One reason is the island's length, but I can't help thinking that the other is that LBI's boardwalk was destroyed by a storm in 1944 and never rebuilt. The result is that the island has none of the gaudy amusement arcades and honky-tonk hotels that so despoil other resorts.
But LBI's most democratic tradition is the summer open house weekend when residents of the swanky mansions at the northern end of the island throw open their doors to the public to raise money for the local arts foundation. In short, it is a licence to snoop and as much as I pretend to despise such occasions, I have to admit there is something fascinating about opening the door to an elegant New England-style cottage and discovering that the interiors have been transformed with red-white-and-blue carpets. But then that is LBI to a T, a resort where your neighbour is just as likely to be a working-class hero as a Wall Street fat cat and where everyone, regardless of income or social background, is equal before the Stars and Stripes.
Through dint of our repeated visits, I suppose we could now be considered honourary LBIers. Just don't ask my father-in-law to take in the British flag until we leave.
Way to go
Getting there: Continental Airlines (01293 827460, continental.com) flies Gatwick-Newark from £433 rtn inc tax until August 23, and from £297 August 23-October 25.
Where to stay: Bayshore Realty (+609 494 6622, bayshorerealty.com) rents two-bed apartments from $2,000 per week Engleside Hotel (+609 492 1251, engleside.com), doubles from $223 in summer. Sea Shell Motel (+609 492 4611, seashell-lbi.com) doubles from $215. Quarter Deck Motel (+609 494 9055, qdlbi.com) doubles from $120)
Where to eat: The Dutchman's Brauhaus, 2500 E Bay Ave, Cedar Bonnet Island (+609 494 6910). Harvey Cedars Shellfish Company, 7904 Long Beach Blvd, Harvey Cedars (+609 494 7112). Yellow Fin Restaurant, 24th Street and LB Blvd, Surf City (+609 494 7001).
Further information: longbeachisland.com, longbeachisland.com.
Country code: 001.
Flight time London-New York: 7hrs. New York-Long Beach Island by car: 2hrs.
Time difference: +5hrs. £1= 1.71 dollars.
