ANDY gave me a shove and the 10-foot longboard took off like a shark on the hunt. I felt a sense of lightness as the roll of water caught up with me, tilting down the foam plank on which I lay. I paddled hard to stay ahead of the wave.

“Pop up!” I heard Andy Grossman, my instructor, yell. I tried, first lifting my shoulders, then clambering to my knees and finally onto unsteady feet, squatting and still touching the board with my hands for balance. A rush of adrenaline flooded my system as I stood. Up on a surfboard! On my second try! I felt like Neptune rising from the sea, the salty foam below paying homage to my feat. Raising my fist in triumph, I looked around to see which of my friends were watching — and promptly fell headlong into the surf.

Elsewhere on the East Coast — on Long Island, say, or at the Jersey Shore — my first surfboard ride might have irritated more experienced surfers as I passed through their right of way. At the very least, the crowds onshore would have noticed my flailing arms as I pitched forward and would have known that I was less skilled than my sleek wetsuit suggested. But on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, on a Friday morning in June, my surfing class was all alone.

Of the surf spots within a (long) day’s drive of the big cities of the Northeast, North Carolina’s Outer Banks is arguably the best for beginners. Among the expected hot spots in Hawaii and California, the Outer Banks hamlet Kill Devil Hills came in at No. 6 on a list of America’s 10 best surf towns in the July 2009 issue of Surfer magazine. Montauk, N.Y. (No. 8), and Ocean City, N.J. (10), have similarly reliable surf but colder water, higher rental prices and beaches packed with visitors all summer.