It’s “Point Break” on Montauk Point.
That’s where homegrown Long Island thrill seekers summoning their best Patrick Swayze impersonations, hit the ferocious Atlantic in the winter months for an ultimate — and perilous — surf in nearly subzero temps.
“I mean, this can kill you,” longtime winter surfer Dr. John Kavanaugh, sporting shoulder-length hair and a goatee, told The Post just before catching waves in windy, 26-degree weather at Ditch Plains in Montauk Friday.
“There are days out there where there are ice blocks … some people say ‘you guys are crazy.’
“They think we’re nuts.”
The East Hampton chiropractor isn’t the only one catching curls with snow on the sand.
A band of about a dozen others were riding crisp waves off Montauk’s bluffs on a Wednesday afternoon last month.
“When the waves are good, people come. Like a really good Saturday, it will get crowded,” Kavanaugh, 60, said of the traditional summer hotspot.
“… now it will get crowded in the winter,” added the Plainview native, who’s been at it for decades.
A new wave
The scene in the dangerously cold ocean waters has shifted from merely daredevils and the “Jeff Spicoli” crowd to more mainstream.
“Surfing is no longer just the bums, the high school dropouts,” joked Kavanaugh, whose Spuds MacKenzie-like pooch, Ozzie, joins him at the beach. “Now it’s everybody, we’re all doctors and lawyers now.”
“It’s been getting busier with the work from home stuff … a lot of finance guys are out here year-round,” said Kavanaugh, who hit the water Friday afternoon before heading back to his practice.
Having the beaches less touristy and more open in the cold season is a nice touch, but the regulars, he added, are used to surfing around the extra bodies like they’re buoys.
There’s also a special camaraderie among salt-of-the-earth locals who brave the elements when Montauk gets sleepy in the winter.
Kavanaugh does his best portrayal of “Bodhi,” bringing a special hollowed-out log he turns into a fire pit to speahead cookouts with his compadres to keep warm on the beach — as things quickly turns into party town USA.
“We celebrate,” he said. “Big fires — the way to go. “Set up lots of cooking at the table, hot toddies, tequila … gotta have that. Lot of fun.
“There was a Christmas a couple of years ago, we were here five, six days [in a row]. It was like going to Aspen for the winter. It was sunny, warm, friends, parties. Amazing, right?”
Hang 10 — degrees
Finding the gut check to get in the ocean requires more than a tolerance for being soaking wet in the bone-chilling temps, the seasoned surfer said.
“It’s harder because that water is thicker in the winter, so you’re moving slower. …These wetsuits, you’re not flying around,” said Kavanaugh.
“With this cold stuff, you’ve got to be careful.”
That’s coming from a man who “almost died” while surfing 25-foot waves during a July 4 storm, a years ago, that had three others around him “crying and puking.”
Those gutsy enough to enter the frigid waters at Montauk Point do so for reasons beyond bravado.
“It’s harder, but it’s beautiful, and we get better waves in the winter,” Kavanaugh said, claiming he can survive the water for a few hours on a good day with low wind. “The winter coldness, it’s invigorating.
“You can’t get that this summer — it just wakes you up. You get in there, you’re like, ‘Whoa!’ Then later, when you warm up, you get this feeling, yeah, it’s pretty intense.”
