Tell us about an intense or fun surfing memory

Well.. I have so many fun stories but since we are talking about surfing with family, I can tell you about our family trip to Costa Rica. Let’s see, the kids were 15, 13 and 12 and we took a ponga out to a spot called Ollie’s point and we all got some really amazing waves but it started to thunder and lightening and my youngest got a bit scared so we all paddled back to the boat and started back to the beach which was about a 30 minute ride up the coast. Well, the storm came in strong and the rain was coming down hard! It was getting really difficult to see! Our captain, had not set the correct coordinates on his compass and was talking out into the middle of the ocean! I was in total panic thinking we are all going to be lost at sea.. what Have I DONE! My family is lost at sea! We sat idle for about 30 minutes jsut floating out in the middle of the ocean! Luckily, my husband had his iphone in a secure dry location and he was able to help our captain find the correct coordinate and get us all safely back to shore! It was quite an adventure and thank GOD we made it back safely! All just wet, cold and hungry!

What is your occupation

I am a science teacher at Santa Cruz Montessori School

Do you have any significant community involvement?

My school program has adopt a beach from Save our Shores and we do beach clean up frequently.

Tell us something unique about you as a mother who surfs with/without your kiddos

I think that because I am an ocean and an avid surfer lover I have always supported my kids to be great swimmers and comfortable in the ocean. My son Luke is already a life guard for sc and my middle daughter just got hired to be a lifeguard for this summer. I have a great sense of adventure and fun and I liked to say I passed that on to my kids with their love of the ocean.

What is your most memorable surf moment with your kids?

I have so many but I can tell you about one recently.. In December last year the swell was big! I took my son Luke who is 19 out to Natural Bridges. It was breaking really far outside and I caught this set waves that i rode all the way to the beach. As i was paddling for the wave my son yells “Go Mom! GO” so i went and as i was paddling back out with him, this young guy paddles over to us and says ” Wow, Dude like that’s your MOM?” and my son is like “yeah, thats my mama!” He responded “That is so cool that you are charging the big surf with your mom! I would love to surf with my mom!” and we all laughed but it was really fun to share that experience with my son and he knows that MOM will GO! haha

What are some challenges of surfing related to motherhood?

I would say when the 3 kids were little and needed to be watched.. the challenging part was finding time to surf. But I had met this amazing group of women who also had the same problem so we started doing surf trades. Some of these women are still my best friends today, like Julie Malcom, and even through are kids are older and some surf more than others we still make time to try and surf as much as we can! We like to surf out of town so we still like to surf Moss, Waddell, 3 mile, and Davenport when we can!