Hunt of the Sun

"I like it down here," says Gregg Fawthrop, 18. "There aren't any parents, no one to tell me what to do. You can blow your mind, drink, do anything you like." "Down here" happens to be Ocean City, located on an 8 1/2-mile-long island off the coast of southern New Jersey. But Fawthrop could just as easily have been talking about a dozen other beach communities in the U.S. where high school kids, college students and recent graduates congregate on summer weekends and vacations for sun, sand, suds and sex. It's all there, too.

Action. The crowd at any particular spot is certain that its place is the place. Thus Wayne Hough of Charlotte, N.C., keeps going back to South Carolina's Ocean Drive--Myrtle Beach area because "the best-looking girls in the U.S. come here--just look around if you don't believe me." Ed Horney, a young Los Angeles accountant, haunts Southern California's Manhattan Beach because he knows "it's the greatest place for meeting girls casually." If that's so, then how come Bob Serafino, a 26-year-old elementary-school teacher from nearby Laguna Beach, journeys all the way to Provincetown, Mass.? "Because the Cape is where the action is, where things are really moving."

Actually, the things that are moving are pretty much the same in all the sun spots. Males in sawed-off Levi's and sweatshirts pursuing females in bikinis or bell-bottomed hiphuggers. And vice versa. By day, the hunt takes place on the beach, where surfers and volleyballers ripple muscles before appreciative quarry. At night, it continues with beer drinking and frenzied frugging to ear-shattering rock bands in the local clubs: Cisco's at Manhattan Beach, Zack's in Falmouth, Mass., Big Al's Gas House in Santa Cruz, Calif. When the bars close, it's really time to swing, with all-night parties in motels and rooming houses or, in Saugatuck, Mich., on boats moored in the Kalamazoo River. One Pittsburgh coed, summer-schooling at U.C.L.A. and summering in and around the Oar House at Santa Monica, describes her routine as "swimming, horseback riding, necking--the usual things."

Vile Appetites. The place with the wildest reputation is Ocean City, which was founded by Methodist clergymen in the late 19th century as "a moral seaside resort which must be run in the interests of our holy Christianity." Ocean City still bans alcoholic beverages ("We cannot pander to vile appetites or propensities"), but just two miles across the causeway is Somers Point--and it has 18 bars. After sunning all day at Ocean City and partying all night at Somers Point, the conclusion is frequently sexual. Says Ann Williams, a 23-year-old medical technician: "The kids think nothing of living together."

A Somers Point bar like Tony Mart's has 36 bartenders and bouncers, called "crowd-control engineers," to keep things in hand. Police have tightened up on underage drinking and keep a tight rein on potential disturbances. Sometimes it works, as on last June 19 when officers rounded up a loud crowd of 23. Police recall that one girl got on the phone to her father to ask him for the $200 bail. "Hello, Daddy," she said, her voice trembling. "Happy Father's Day." Then she burst into tears.

Visiting Privileges. Perhaps the ultimate place is Fire Island, that swinging, 33-mile-long sliver off Long Island's southern shore. Denizens of such communities as Ocean Beach, Robin's Rest, Ocean Bay Park and Davis Park have established such a free and easy way of life that they have had to invent a new language to describe it. GROUPERS are not fish, but young people who have pooled their assets to rent a house together for the season. There are BOY HOUSES and GIRL HOUSES but the MIXED HOUSE is fast becoming the most popular arrangement. Seasoned groupers insist on VISITING PRIVILEGES before going in on a house; that means they can bring along their SLEEPIES, who are nonresident guests of the opposite sex.

SNAFFLING means rounding up a group for a party at which BASH, a devastating blend of fruit juice, rum and Scotch, is the preferred drink. Bars like the Sea Turtle in Ocean Beach and Flynn's in Ocean Bay Park are good for snaffling from 10 p.m. on. So is the SIXISH, a bring-your-own cocktail party that starts at 7 p.m., seems to move of its own accord from one grouper house to another.

"A Highly Moral Place." "This isn't a place where you turn on," says Sara Spadea, a psychology major at New York University. "It's a place where you turn off." Claims another N.Y.U. coed who had obviously turned all the way off: "I lived in a mixed house all last summer and never knew the last name of anyone."

"This is a highly moral place," insists a 26-year-old brunette media buyer for a Manhattan advertising agency. "Nobody does anything they don't want to do." Adds Judy Deutsch, who graduated from Sarah Lawrence last month: "I'd be terribly shocked if it wasn't mixed boys and girls here Most people who have been through college take these things in stride." Indeed they do--or appear to--and they have given Fire Island a unique place in the sun. "This island just floats on weekends," muses Mark Newland, a senior at George Washington University. "It goes out to sea Friday night and doesn't come back until Sunday."

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