Surf Journalism
Cross-stepping is one of surfing's most elegant maneuvers, but it's not purely aesthetic. Moving up and down the board allows you to control speed and stay close to the wave's energy source. But how to begin when it's easier, and fun, to trim, turn, and not waste waves while learning this tricky technique? We asked three local surf stars, each with differing stylistic flourishes, to share their paths and journeys to the nose.
How important are fins to surf goals and performance? Former pro-surfer Adam Replogle of Billabong, who rides high-performance shortboards, says, "Fins can turn a good board into a great board, and a good board into a bad board." Given the high stakes, what are the ultimate keys to fin selection? Where do the boundaries of experimentation lie? Fins and fin setups are, much like surfboards, always going to involve a compromise.
When Santa Cruz’s only big surf industry company, O’Neill Wetsuits, put on an event in October that for the first time included females, it could’ve been a happy story of progress at last. Instead it “came off wrong,” according to many who followed it closely, and the company has said very little about it. Others, though, had much to say.
I constantly complain (sorry, surf buddies) that I didn’t find surfing — or surfing didn’t find me — until I was almost 34. If only I could surf until I’m 100, I’d say, to make up for lost time.
But it turns out I will be able to ... in a way.
Continuum Hospice & Palliative Care in Capitola is using virtual reality made by Rendever, and it is designed to be used specifically in senior communities and health care organizations. The user-friendly tech provides experiences to indoor-bound seniors and the terminally ill that anyone walking the earth would long for: African safaris, frolicking in a room full of puppies, touring the Louvre, skydiving — and yes, surfing.
I’ve loved surfing for years, but before the pandemic, I couldn’t regularly go. When lockdown began, though—with my husband’s dawn commute over the hill on pause and our kids out of preschool—I regularly forced myself out of bed at 5:30am and biked to a nearby spot.
A couple months into quarantine, water days outnumbered my under-wetsuit swimwear supply.
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Kainoa Queenan, aka Kai, 12, should know. Watching Kai dominate the lineup one recent Tuesday at Pleasure Point, it’s hard to believe the young ripper is, as his coach Andre Gioranelli describes him, “so mellow” and “shy.” In an Instagram clip from that session, an impressed bystander can be overheard asking Kai’s father, “What’d you guys feed him, raw steak?”
My intro to surfing in Santa Cruz came a few months after I moved, in early 2013. My husband’s friend took me to the beginner-friendly break with long, peeling, gentle waves. You can see the pier and hear sea lions barking. In the summer, screams from the boardwalk thrill-rides echo in the distance.
I was nervous. I loved swimming, loved the ocean. But I didn’t know what to do with the giant board, where to sit,...
It was the best of conditions, it was the worst of conditions, it was the age of cooperation, it was the age of tantrums, it was the epoch of swell, is was the epoch of flatness, it was the season of sun, it was the season of fog, it was the spring of crowds, it was the winter of spaciousness.
With apologies to Dickens, so might go the opening lines of a novel based on Surfing Moms of Santa Cruz.
As a 40-something mother of two who didn’t start surfing until 33—pretty much as far from a pro as one can be—I cannot believe I’ve entered a contest. I’m noncompetitive by nature, reliably intermediate at best in all of my recreational pursuits. But in signing up, I’m now part of the inclusive, celebratory reach of Women and Waves (WOW).
The science- and mindfulness-based activities suggested in Easkey Britton’s 50 Things to Do at the Beach (illus. by Maria Nilsson; Princeton Architectural Press, May)—think seabird watching or rock pooling—come in an accessible format conducive to quick dips. PW caught up with the scientist and big-wave surfer, who grew up on Ireland’s North Atlantic coast, at the end of a cold day in her homeland, when she’d already been out in the water.
Conditions couldn’t be more ideal for Esabella Bonner and the Black Surf Club Santa Cruz’s Pre-Juneteenth paddle-out Sunday, aside from the foot-scorching sand, with sun shining bright and temperatures rising into the 70s.
Though the wind picks up in the afternoon, high tide means Cowell’s is flat, if slightly choppy. Still, it’s near-perfect — unintimidating. Many of the participants are new to the ocean.
It’s a sun-drenched afternoon. We’re sitting in Adirondack chairs in third co-organizer Corey Grace’s lawn on the East side of Santa Cruz. It’s “production day.” Godinez, Zanville, and Grace are assembling and preparing to send out the participator kits, containing t-shirts, decals, a tote bag, and a beautiful commemorative print Godinez designed.
Because of the intimidation factor Zanville mentions, were it a more typical year, I probably wouldn’t have participated. ...