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I.SEA.YOU

 

This year we AIM TO CELEBRATE the unique and special magic that happens when we feel SEEN.

OUR THEME THIS YEAR IS... I.SEA.YOU

I.SEA.YOU is about women and girls coming together, supporting, uplifting, cheering, and learning from each other while sharing the same purpose and passion. 

Excited to announce that leading up to WOW 2024 we'll be sharing inspiring stories collected by @ally about the incredible WOW surfers who are part of our community.

If you'd like to be featured or nominate a friend for this series, just send us a message!

DARLA

Darla is the type of woman who when she manifests something, she and the universe work in tandem to bring it into fruition. It’s not as simple as she just works hard – Darla dedicates herself to her goals wholly and with an increasingly rare authenticity to see them through to the finish line.

 

And it’s that fierce commitment to cultivating a life of her dreams that one might not readily see. What shines brightly about Darla at first is her giggly, earthly nature, her gentleness with those around her, and her gracefulness in the water as she dances across longboards. Her long, strawberry brownish-blondish hair invites you in, along with her smile that has a humbleness and wisdom about it.

 

While there is no naivete behind her eyes, there is a preservation of optimism about the world and her destiny in it.


FULL ARTICLE

NOHEMI

Nohemi isn’t quite sure where to claim as her hometown when asked, and it could be because she’s more like a daughter of the world.

 

She spent her earliest months of life in the small town of Lake Amatitlan in Guatemala, before being adopted and moving to the Palo Alto area.

 

As a child through young adult years, she frequented Santa Cruz and Watsonville, visited Hawaii and traveled up-and-down the California coast. Although she didn’t start getting serious about surfing until middle-and-high school years, she’s always been drawn to the water, which she sees as a natural extension of being born lakeside in Central America.

 

“I should’ve known I would end up being a surfer, especially when I look back at pictures of myself as a kid where I’m photographed wearing a tiny O'Neill wetsuit when I was two, then another photo of me poking my head around a giant longboard when I was seven,” Nohemi said. “There were always these hints that I was going to grow up to become a surfer, and it will be part of my life forever.”


FULL ARTICLE

ERIN

Erin grew up in the middle of a cornfield in Minnesota, hundreds of miles away from the nearest surf break. Although she was an avid swimmer doing open water swims in frigid lakes, the ocean was an entirely different beast when she and her family first moved to the west coast.

The move to Santa Cruz was a pandemic idea that took hold and didn’t let go – she and her husband worked in the world of academia: she as a clinical psychologist working with veterans who had PTSD and needed support in obtaining better sleep, and her husband as a librarian. The cold, midwestern winters were growing increasingly harsh as Covid plunged them deeper into solitude.

“We looked at a map for about a month and we knew we needed the ocean, mountains, good weather and redwoods,” Erin said. “We flew out here, signed a lease and flew back to Minnesota to put our house on the market. It was a very sudden, blow-up-your-life type of moment, and we’ve never been happier.”

FULL ARTICLE

HEALEY

Most people know Healey for her longboarding style that merges a confident fierceness with dancers-esque grace. She’s a fixture at Steamer Lane and refuses to let any negative comments slide from others in the water who question whether she’s “good enough to be surfing without a leash”. Watch her catch one wave and that’ll tell any passersby that she doesn’t just belong in those lineups, she owns them.

But what many people don’t readily know about this wunderkind queen is that as a young child growing up on the westside of Santa Cruz, Healey hated the ocean. That’s right – couldn’t stand it.

“The waves scared me, I hated boogie boarding, I hated all things water,” she said with an easy laugh.

She joined junior guards when she was 7 and slowly the water started to spur more curiosity than fear. The encouragement of the instructors aided her in that journey, as well as being surrounded by friends who spent most of their summer days at the beach.
FULL ARTICLE

DIANNE

Born in the Philippines and raised in San Francisco, Dianne Finez has come to view surfing as her one true pathway to freedom in life. It’s more than an escape for Dianne – the ocean is the one place where she can focus solely on herself, with all other responsibilities fading so far in the background that for those precious hours in the surf, her worries no longer exist.“Surfing itself isn’t just an activity, it’s a self-help outlet for me to quiet the mind,” Dianne said. “It also gives me a chance to reflect on what I could be doing better, whether it’s in surfing or in other parts of my life.

 

”Dianne only recently dedicated her soul to surfing a little over four years ago. At 21-years-old, she paddled into and caught her first wave at Linda Mar Beach when she was 17. Technically, she had been surfing once before during a summer camp with the nonprofit organization City Surf Project, which aims to make surfing equitable for all in the Bay Area. 
FULL ARTICLE

CHRIS

Lately, Chris has been reflecting on how she wants to spend this next chapter of her life. At 63, she’s been forced to endure on more than one occasion the passing of friends she had spent decades surfing with – water women who she competed against and laughed with, cried with and grew up with.

As Chris continues learning how to embrace changes happening within her own body, she chooses celebrating life over fearing what could happen next.

And the most critical celebration she partakes in religiously? Surfing.
FULL ARTICLE

JOAN

Surfing has nearly killed Joan and yet has also saved her life on more than one occasion.

Joan was born in the landlocked state of Kansas with no ocean in sight. But because her mother always had a fond spot for California, the family moved to Capitola in 1964 when Joan was four-years-old. She hasn’t looked back since.

The family settled on Park Avenue and Cabrillo Street, right above New Brighton Beach, close to her maternal grandmother who was living there as well. It was there as a young child that Joan got her first rush of adrenaline that’s induced by tumbling in the foamy beach break: body surfing, skimboarding and riding a surf mat, Joan tried it all.
FULL ARTICLE

KELLY

When Kelly Donahue decided to get serious about surfing as an outlet to reconnect with herself, it was in the middle of winter on the east coast. In her 5 millimeter wetsuit, hood, gloves, booties and vaseline spread over her face to prevent her skin from freezing, she made her way out to the beach break at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

This newfound commitment to surfing came after her daughter was born and in the middle of the pandemic. Searching for something more than her routine life in the suburbs, she sought out surfing as a way to reclaim parts of herself, build community and to simply have some carefree fun.


FULL ARTICLE

TANDEM

The earliest memories Tandem Hayden has of surfing are with her dad - surfing tandem, no less. Spending her earliest years living in a van in Santa Cruz, she was surfing The Lane before she was even conscious of it, taking ownership of the west side. Tandem was born with a burning passion for surfing that she’s kept stoking to this day.

 

At just two-and-half years old, Tandem would paddle out into overhead surf with her dad. After he would catch a wave, he would toss her into the air and together they’d perform wave acrobatics.


FULL ARTICLE

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