WELLFLEET, Mass. (AP) – Four boys emerged from the small crowd of surfers floating 40 yards out, paddled hard for five or six strokes, jumped up on short boards and slid fast down the smooth hump of water as it broke into white foam.

Among more than two dozen surfers gathered along a stretch of Marconi Beach at the Cape Cod National Seashore, the slender teenagers stood out. They surfed four across, among men on longboards, other boys, a few girls, boogie boarders, body surfers and waders.

“Surfing’s become very cool again,” said Sebastian Frawley, whose Little Overhead shop a few miles away had run low on rental boards by noon. A hot Friday in mid-August, he pulled the sales tag off a new 9-foot fiberglass board and rented it for the day for $30.

It’s cool not just in New England. Board sports retailer Billabong opened a store this summer in Manhattan’s Times Square. Some of the Jewish settlers facing evacuation from the Mideast’s Gaza Strip said what they’d particularly miss was the surfing there.

Market researcher Board-Trac reported 2 million Americans surfed last year, two-thirds male. Most were over 18.

“Ten years ago that was globally,” Chris Mauro, editor of Surfer magazine, said of the total. He added that surfing has lost its former outlaw stigma. “It’s really, you know, just part of the American culture.”

A new Surf Industry Manufacturers Association survey shows $2.46 billion in U.S. sales last year of apparel, shoes and equipment at surf-focused stores, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier.

“A lot of people like to attribute that to its popularity especially in mainstream media, movies and television,” association spokeswoman Jennifer Harris said.

It’s the biggest wave of popularity since the early “80s, Frawley said, and he’s determined to make some money from it. He had “25 dot-commers” on a beginner outing the day before and now a small steady stream of customers at his shop on Route 6, the main road through Cape Cod.

“It’s probably bigger in places like this because it’s new to a lot of people,” said Frawley, who began surfing 20 years ago. “It seems like every beach we go to there’s 25 surfers. Back when I started in high school, it’d just be me and a couple friends and a couple older guys.”

In most of New England the season is mainly July and August. Frawley said the best waves come in late August and September in hurricane season and some people even go out in winter when the water temperature is in the 30s.

Better wet suits have extended the sport to colder water. Board-Trac’s Angelo Ponzi said the biggest market change the past five years is the increase in females: From about 20 percent to 33 percent.

In 1987, about 1.5 million people surfed in the U.S., the total dipped then gradually rose to 2.1 million in 2000, dipped again slightly and is now rising again steadily, he said.

“The lifestyle, if you will, is probably the bigger driver in this market,” Ponzi said. “If you look at the attitude of the teenager in the Midwest, they can get the clothes. I think that attitude prevails across the country. Kids want to replicate the southern California lifestyle.”

The sport itself isn’t new to the Northeast, though it remains dependent on the weather. Ponzi said there have been large contingents of surfers on the Jersey Shore for a long time.

The skill level needed here ranges from beginner to advanced, depending on wave size, the Web site NESurf.com says. “Which spots are best will depend on the constantly shifting sandbars (spots that are good one day may suck after a big swell or storm). During the summer many of the beaches listed get crowded and charge for parking so you may want to explore.”

At Marconi, beginners struggled to their feet on small rolling waves, while skilled riders caught the crests and sliced back and forth toward shore. By midafternoon, sunbathers packed the sand for almost a half-mile under hazy sunshine, with open expanses beyond. The sprawling parking lot atop the bluffs, 60 miles from Boston and 13 miles short of the Cape’s urban tip at Provincetown, was nearly full.

The Atlantic Ocean hovered around 60 degrees.

David Yuska, a 37-year-old computer programmer from Natick outside Boston, learned to surf on beach vacations in Florida. He bought a one-piece partial wet suit last year and started surfing on Cape Cod with rented boards. This year his wife bought him an 8-foot, 4-inch board for his birthday.

There were few waves one June day at nearby Surfer’s Beach, and he got cold after a half-hour paddling around in 55-degree water. “I couldn’t feel my legs,” he said. The other surfers had whole wet suits that covered their arms and legs, plus booties, gloves and hoods.

But in mid-August, many surfers wore partial wet suits and stayed in the water for hours. Some wore only swimsuits. Yuska got several rides. He planned to go again sometime the following week, hoping that Hurricane Irene out over the Atlantic would kick up some waves.