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Sea Change Featured Story: Myra Burg
Sixty-three-year old Myra Burg was seven when her mom chopped up her brother’s surfboard with an ax. She says surfing was counterculture when her parents told her she shouldn’t surf. At age thirty, Myra saw a sign that read: “Surfing lessons here. If you don’t stand up, you don’t pay.” “After a two-hour lesson, I didn’t have to pay,” Myra says. For thirty years, Myra Read more...
Sea Change Featured Story: Bachul Koul
When a shark chased forty-two-year-old trans nonbinary Bachul Koul to shore, Bachul was surfing with a fellow track team member. “This guy was the Division III national champion mile runner,” Bachul says. “So his legs are pretty important. Not that other people's legs aren't, but his legs were special.” Born in India, Bachul moved with their family to New Jersey when they were ten years Read more...
Sea Change Featured Story: Susie Samadzade
Thirty-one-year old Susie Samadzade was born and raised in Iran, moved to San Francisco in 2013, and began surfing at Pacifica’s Linda Mar Beach in 2015. Susie grew up in Iran wearing hijab. “It was really hard at the beach,” she says. “Some Iranian beaches are covered with big curtains to block off the women’s area. You can wear just a swimsuit, but only in Read more...
Traveler Surf Club
While I've been to the ocean a handful of times over the past month, it’s been tough finding time to surf. I had two regular slots that I kept missing because of non-negotiable conflicts. So when I could, I slipped away, slid into my wetsuit, and played in the water, even when I didn't take my surfboard out. Something is better than nothing, I reasoned. Read more...
But then I realized I had to commit to paddling and just jump up
After parking in the Soul Grind lot this evening, I pulled my four bags—purse, work backpack, post-surfing dry clothes bag, and post-surfing wet clothes bag—out of my car. This tiny lot is wedged between the main beach parking (a.k.a. the Taco Hell lot) and the surf shops. It's spillover beach parking, and Traveler is a couple storefronts in, so this is where I park now Read more...
I like my avocado toast with a side of surfboards
I went out with Alvaro this morning on a pretty flat day. When the waves came, I rode the first one all the way in. I did this a few times during my first ever surf lesson on an enormous board on Maui. But in Pacifica, I usually fall off long before I make it to shore. Then I knee-surfed all the remaining ones so Read more...