Women find a sea change in surfing

We stood on the beach, names barely known, and spilled our hearts onto the sand.

One woman had just ended an engagement. Another had just turned 50. Another had just gone through "the year from hell," during which she buried her mother and her dog and found her identity had been stolen.

Whatever brought us to the beach in Seaside, Ore., it was clear there was some healing to be done. And surfing was to be the salve.

For two days, we seven women would paddle and pop up, crash and cruise, stretch and sigh and feel our stress subside. And we would let out the hoots and hollers of a victory at sea.

This is what happens at Lexie Hallahan's Northwest Women's Surfing Camps, a 4-year-old venture that has tapped into the increasing number of women bent on chasing dreams, youth, a new challenge, camaraderie or a new way to love the ocean.

Five years ago, women made up 19 percent of the surfing population, according to Board-Trac, a marketing research firm that specializes in action sports. Now, women make up 24 percent of the nation's 2.4 million surfers.

"Surfing is really transformative," said Hallahan, 47. "Besides all the fun, it's big medicine that we are providing. We all feel a really strong sense of purpose."

The 20-year Seaside resident learned to surf after years of sitting on the beach watching her husband, Tom, catch set after set.

"My first wave, I felt like I was dancing on the water," she said. "Surfing is a deep connection with the ocean. Once you move through the fear stuff, you have a presence with nature. Women know that. And if they can get that connection, it can help them move through wherever they are in their lives."

Hallahan started the camps after teaching a three-day women's class for the Cleanline Surf Shop in Seaside. On the second day, she noticed, "All the women were changing right in front of me."

She struck out on her own, designing a program that includes time in the water, but also sessions on surf etiquette, reading tide charts and choosing surf gear. There are also organic meals and yoga. Equipment rentals are included in the price, but lodging is extra.

"I think surfing is a lot like yoga, in that it extends your livelihood and yourself," Hallahan said. "If you love water and can swim and have a passion to learn, you should come surfing."

Women have, and in increasing numbers. Attendance at Hallahan's camps has spiked 20 percent every year, mostly through word-of-mouth and online searches.

"I think women's surfing is holding steady," said Board-Trac's Marie Case. "Women get the same thing out of surfing that men do. It's peaceful, it's spiritual and it's a workout."

At this weekend camp, surfers met at 9 a.m. in the lot of a Seaside skateboard park, where a bus waited to take us to our first stop: the Cleanline Surf Shop, where we would be outfitted with wetsuits, gloves and booties, and get our first whiff of wax.

As we wriggled into our suits behind closed curtains ("Is this supposed to be really suffocating?"), Cleanline owner and "El Jefe" Josh Gizdavich posited his "Blue Crush Theory."

It's named for the 2002 film starring Kate Bosworth as an ambitious blond surfer whose love of waves is challenged by — what else? — her new love for some football player.

"When 'Blue Crush' came out, all these women and girls who wanted to surf realized they could do it," Gizdavich said. "And then they all got gear and started surfing."

In 1979, only 1 percent of Gizdavich's customers were women shopping for themselves. Now, women make up about 35 percent of his business. Just the day before, he said, he sold four wetsuits — two of them to women.

Before we took our rental suits and headed to the beach, there was one more thing Hallahan and her teaching partner, Dennis Braun, wanted us to do: Learn to recognize the perfect wave.

We gathered around a TV near the store entrance and watched a clip from Bruce Brown's classic 1964 documentary "The Endless Summer."

Most rides last for eight to 10 seconds, Braun said. The one we would see went for 45, during which Robert August looked as calm as a commuter on one of those moving sidewalks at the airport.

"I've seen it a hundred times," said Cleanline employee Paavo Delind. "Never gets old."

Said Braun: "Start visualizing yourself doing those motions. We are throwing the power switch of surfing in your life."

We set out for Oswald West State Beach, about 10 miles south of Cannon Beach. As the bus hugged the coast along Highway 101, we took in the view of the ocean — and each other.

We ranged in age from 15 to 50. We were teachers, environmental planners, managers and mothers.

That established, we cut to the chase and bonded through our insecurities, like pregnant women sharing their worries about birthing a new life.

When it came to this new sport, we were scared. We were uncoordinated. We dreaded getting back into those wetsuits, the Jacques Cousteau equivalent of Spanx.

Would we spend the day chattering our teeth and hanging onto our boards like Titanic survivors? Would we catch anything? Would we get up?

In the beach parking lot, we were given our 9-foot, soft-topped boards, then paired up to carry them down a half-mile trail to the beach. We trundled along, but were quickly swallowed — and silenced — by trees, both towering and tipped. Surfers passed us on their way back up the trail and nodded as if we were one of them.

The trail opened to a stunning view of the Pacific, bookended by cliffs topped with alpine topped with blue sky.

Hallahan stopped us there to show how to assess the surf using a tide chart, and to use the exposed sand at low tide to study what she called "the skeleton of the sea." We talked about tides, swell size, intervals and winds — Hallahan's "recipe for a perfect wave."

On the beach, we set our boards down and did some yoga to loosen up and hone our balance and agility, but also to create what Hallahan called "a centered place" to take on the waves.

From there, we reviewed the parts of a board: the nose and tail, and the sides, or "rails." The undercarriage. The fins.

We struggled back into our wetsuits, and then stretched out upon the boards to practice paddling and the crucial "pop-up" — so simple on dry land.

In the surf, the wetsuit made for a strange sort of baptism, as we waited for a cold that never came. Once the water was waist high, we hopped out on our boards and started paddling against the waves.

It was hard to relax at first, to sit back and let the waves run things, until you realized that you could work together. Just wait, keep your balance, keep looking back, and when a green-water wall held and looked about to curl, start paddling. When you felt as though the wave had you locked in, you were to "pop up" and ride it in.

Easier said than done. If you're not far enough up on the board, it is a heavy load to lift. If your hands or feet aren't right, you can lose your balance.

So you crashed. You wiped the cold water from your face and slapped the sea.

But then you saw someone slowly, tentatively riding in, and pumped your fist in the air instead.

And then, you headed back out. A little lighter, a lot more determined to get up — and when it happened, well, it was like learning to walk again. Don't think so hard. Just do it.

"You can get tired and frustrated," Hallahan said. "But there has never been a time when surfing isn't fun."

By the end of the weekend, all of us had gotten up a few times. Two had decided to buy boards, bags, wetsuits.

We had left something out there: the pain in our hearts, the years we thought we had lost, our own fears. We were surfers.

Nicole Brodeur: 206-464-2334