In recent weeks I’ve had a unusual amount of free time. My work/life partner is out of town (out of the country, more accurately), and I’ve been surfing more than I can when I have 1.5 full time jobs.  I’m a better, happier person when I have time to surf. Significantly poorer, but I get by. 

Being a female surfer, I’m almost always outnumbered by the men/boys.  I can probably count on one hand the times I’ve looked around me in the water and women/girls were in the majority.  It’s all the same to me—the important things are that there aren’t too many people of ANY gender and that the waves are good.  I’ve always been a tomboy, so being a female in a largely male sport has never bothered me. 

I learned to surf when I was 30 years old which makes me a latecomer to the game.  That doesn’t bother me either.  I’ll never have the ease and fluidity of someone who learned to surf as a child, but I love it anyway and that’s what counts.

I’ve made a new and interesting observation in recent weeks.  I think I’m the oldest woman in the water.  If I’m not (but I think I am), it’s close and the company is slim. I look around, no matter where I paddle out, and…the surfers my age are men.  All the girls I see, and can’t help but compare my bathing-suit-clad body to in utter mortification, are 20 years younger than me.  Or at least 10.  Maybe even 30.  Which, I humbly confess, makes me feel like a badass.  A bulgy one, but hey. Their turn is coming.

Where did they all go, the girls who used to surf with me?  Or surf near me, I should say, as I’m not a very sociable surfer. 

Many of them moved away.  Some lost interest.  Or got scared.  Got too busy.  Chose the gym over the lineup.  One of them, who was older than I am and loved to surf, died last year.  Ellen Zoe. She was, I think, in her early 60’s.  I am (almost) 53.  And I guess that makes me a girl surf dinosaur.  Or matriarch—although the word implies maternity and if I was the mother of everyone in the water, I would send at least half of you home to clean your room until the wind switches.  I know men that surf into their 70’s. Where are the women?

So?  Do I get a prize for being the last woman standing?  Um—yeah! Waves!!  Waves are the prize.  And yes I do get them.  And I’m not stopping, either.  My 9-foot Robert August What I Ride and I have a very close relationship and we plan to stay together forever or until one of us breaks.  

Now, when I’m in the water, the strapping surfer boys who used to be so very friendly, just ignore me and hope I don’t get in their way.  Suits me.  It’s the older gentlemen with graying hair who nod politely and don’t bother asking me my name or where I’m from, thank God.  We’ve all been around that mulberry bush enough times and we just want to catch some waves.

And surfing at my home breaks is a bit like a family reunion whether I know the people floating next to me or not.  I think about those who have gone on, like Pio, whose ashes are in the ocean.  Other people I used to surf with who have passed like Ellen, and Tom Walinski.  I think about people I used to surf with who are still here sharing the planet with me.  Eve.  Greg.  Harry.  Laura.  It’s kind of like surfing with a whole company of angels, all these spirits that are close.  There’s a depth now, to just being in the water, that wasn’t available to me when I was 35.  Even though I looked way better in a bikini, then.

Tomorrow morning, when my eyes open a little before 6 and I find my way back into my body, I’ll fuss around for my phone and poke the icon for the Tamarindo surf cam.  The first thing I’ll have to decide is whether to make coffee first, or feed the cats.  Then I’ll put on my bathing suit, throw the board in the truck, and go.  I can drink the coffee while I drive, and by the time I get to the beach, this old surf chick will be wide awake and ready to hit it like a spring chicken.