OCEAN CITY, N.J. - You could call it a family reunion, except that just about nobody is related.

Longer than anyone can remember - starting in the '80s, when most of the kids were small, but nobody can pinpoint the summer - a group of 15, then 20, then more than 40 people of different ages, occupations, and towns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has gathered every Memorial Day weekend on the beach between 38th and 40th Streets here.

"If it's Memorial Day, then we are all here," said Jean Bryce of Turnersville, who has rented a home in Ocean City's south end for two weeks every year at the end of May.

Like thousands of people up and down the Jersey Shore yesterday, Bryce was taking full advantage of good weather on the holiday weekend - the unofficial start of the summer season - to stake her claim on the sand, she said.

"When we come to this beach, we know to look out for the same people when we get here," Bryce said. "We all seem to gather in the same spot every year, even though we really don't know each other."

But this crowd uses the word gather loosely.

Clustered two or three families here and three or four there, but always at least 20 feet apart, they stake out a spot on the sand with their beach blankets, umbrellas, coolers, and toys.

"We really don't all sit together, but, like 20 years ago, we all noticed we're always here at the same time, in just about the same spot," said Pat Smith, 63, of Limerick, Pa., who with his wife, his kids, and now his grandkids always go to the 38th Street beach.

"Everybody just shows up at one point or the other over the weekend," Smith said. "You start to recognize the umbrellas, and then you see it's the same people. It's like a family reunion."

Except without the goofy name badges and awkward reintroductions that family reunions are famous for. And there's no food, no balloons, no seating charts.

But sometimes, pieces of fruit or bottles of water are exchanged. And sometimes, when there's a west wind, it's a spritz or two of bug spray.

Then, like Brigadoon, the little village of beach umbrellas and sand chairs is gone - until next year.

"We come down all summer, but never see these same people except Memorial Day weekend. It's the oddest thing," said Frank Dewey, of Media, Pa., who has been sitting between 38th and 39th Streets for "years."

Not part of Dewey's crowd is Janelle DiLullo, 23, of Seaville, who sets up her sand chair and beach umbrella in the same spot her grandparents and parents always took her to on Ocean City's Ninth Street beach.

"We like it because the boardwalk is right here, and we can sit and enjoy the beach and get something to eat or drink when we want to," said DiLullo, bringing her 18-month-old daughter to the beach for the first time yesterday. "I wouldn't go anywhere else."

George Watson, 59, of San Jose, Calif., was visiting the Jersey Shore for the first time yesterday with his wife as part of an East Coast vacation.

"This is a beautiful beach, and I think this part of the country is beautiful," Watson said. "Not too far inland, you have lush forests very close to this nice coastline. It's lovely. We don't know anybody here, but we feel right at home."

And that was music to the ears of Michele Gillian, executive director of the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"We certainly depend very much on our core customer, the families who come back generation after generation," Gillian said. She had helped place a new banner on the boardwalk's Music Pier proclaiming Ocean City the winner of the New Jersey Marine Science Consortium's "Best Beach" contest last week.

"But I think that people from anywhere can come here and really have a wonderful vacation," Gillian said, "even if it's their first time here."

Contact staff writer Jacqueline L. Urgo at 609-823-9629 or jurgo@phillynews.com.