🏄‍♀️ Can you surf and hold a job? 😳

👋 Happy National Wiggle Your Toes Day! Who comes up with these?! You can observe by “letting your toes feel the grass or the sand on the beach.” Dangle them in the ocean as you sit on your board and ponder the meaning of life. Done. Do not kick horseshoe crabs!

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• Can you surf and hold a job? 😳

• Surfing with a severed toe 🦶

• Surf’s pup! 🐶

• From Costa Rica to Maui 🌴

• Surf news roundup 🗞️

^SURFODRAMA

🏄🏻‍♀️ Can you surf and hold a job? 😳

Confession time. As I'm writing this, I haven't surfed in weeks. I'm going to go out tomorrow after my 9am call. Guaranteed.

I started a new job back in April. Even though I work remotely and live a 15-minute bike ride from the surf, my surf frequency suffered. Massively.

That made me think. Can you surf regularly while holding a regular job? So I headed for Reddit, because where else would surfers share their deepest, darkest secrets?

And it turns out I wasn't the only one with the problem.

Most surfers who work and who surf regularly surf before work. Common sense: the conditions are calmer and by the time you finish work, it might be getting dark.

The fear is that going hard in the ocean before 9am will wreck you physically and prevent you from performing any tasks for the rest of the day.

There are two reasons why surfing may kill your desire to do anything else for the rest of the day.

🧠 Getting wrecked because physiology
The first reason is called immersion diuresis, and it's part of the mammalian dive reflex. When you spend time in cold water, your body shifts blood toward your core, which your kidneys read as fluid overload, so you pee a lot.

By the time you get out, you're dehydrated in a way that a gym workout of similar intensity wouldn't have done to you. Well, some of us are. There's even more science that explains why you can lift for an hour and be fine but surf for an hour and feel like you've been hit by a truck.

There are surfers who say they're worthless for the rest of the day, red-eyed and strung-out. One described it in a way that will feel familiar to any dawn patroller: "I would much rather surf after work, so that I don't have to worry about putting together coherent sentences with colleagues and my boss."

🧪 Getting wrecked because chemistry
The second theory offered by Reddit was a dopamine crash.

As one member put it: "When you surf you are releasing brain chemicals like dopamine and endorphins. Like cocaine or sex you feel great during and after but then a few hours later you dip."

Not sure if it was the mention of sex or cocaine, but many a surfer agreed. You are not tired because you paddled for two hours. You are tired because you spent the neurochemistry. Is this science, though?

🦸‍♀️ Getting superpowers because surfing
Not everyone agrees that surfing before work is going to make you useless at work.

There's this "energized camp," smaller but much louder.

These are the people who say surfing makes them nicer, more focused, and better at their jobs, because it lets them shake off whatever is on their mind and dragging them down.

One explained: "sitting at a desk all day staring at computers, sometimes a super exhausting activity that releases all internal frustrations, excitement, etc can be super helpful with any temper, anxiety, or stress at work."

Needless to say, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. And it depends on the length of your session, the type of job you have, and whether you are open to eating a ton of protein and rehydrating like Bradley Cooper spotted with his giant water bottle this week.

📋 The “surf & work” protocol
The second-highest-voted reply in the entire thread was essentially a productivity guide dressed up as a comment.

Cleaned up, it goes something like this:

Keep sessions short if you're working after. Two hours is often plenty. Four hours will kill you. Refuel immediately, healthy food and electrolytes and water. Front-load your important work by hitting the one or two hardest tasks right after the surf, while you're still sharp, and save the simple repetitive stuff for the afternoon energy dip. Take a nap if you can. Twenty minutes around 2pm gets called a game-changer by multiple members. And know when your dip hits, because some people crash at 3pm and others don't feel it until 5. Track it and plan around it.

I don't know what the surfers who believe this do for work. All I know is that they don't do what I do.

If the surf is good, and I don't have any meetings, there's no way I am only taking two hours. And by the time I'm back, I'll be dead and no good to anyone.

I guess you could argue that none of this is rocket science, but it's a lot more useful than the average work-life-balance advice, because it treats surfing as the fixed thing and work as the variable.

🚐 Getting extreme
Someone said: "I quit my job so I wouldn't have to worry about that shit." Well, lucky you for winning the lottery, having a wealthy grandma or retiring early. Some of us have bills to pay and cats to feed.

One member reduced the whole thread to a single question: "Do you surf to be able to work, or do you work to be able to surf? Answer that and you'll know what to do."

This question weighs on me quite a lot. Am I not a real surfer if I let my job get in the way? Am I not committed enough? Am I, after all this time, simply more interested in writing about surfing than surfing?

I'll have a think about it tomorrow in the surf.

^{SURF SKILLS}

🦶Surfing with a severed toe. Sorry, toenail!

A few years back, I went on a surfing trip with friends in Santa Cruz. There was much merrymaking. On my way to bed, I stubbed my big toe and didn't even notice. The next morning, emptying a dishwasher, my toenail caught on the bottom of the door and fully dislodged. And I went out surfing.

Probably the stupidest thing I've ever done.

But it turns out this is not as uncommon as one might think. A member of our community posted this week that she'd been babying an already-injured toenail for months, hoping it would hang on until the new nail grew in. Then she kicked a horseshoe crab while instructing at surf camp, and that was the end of the nail. Half a nail bed, exposed skin, and a season of surfing still ahead of her.

"That poor horseshoe crab must have been like, ow lady," replied another member. Which is honestly the correct reaction.

The community delivered plenty of experience, although perhaps not an entirely medically approved treatment plan. We were impressed and surprised. We didn’t realize we were all so into toenails.

Let it grow out. This is the majority answer, especially from members who also trail run or run marathons and lose toenails as a matter of routine. The matrix regrows if it's still attached. The skin closes up faster than the ick factor would suggest. Toenails can take 12 to 18 months to grow back completely, depending on how badly the nail matrix was damaged.

Get an acrylic nail rebuilt at a nail salon. Multiple members swear by it, one for years, because the real nail grows in underneath and you can just remove the acrylic when it's ready. It also handles the "I don't want to look at this in flip-flops" problem.

Cover with nail polish or superglue. The emergency-cosmetic option. Won't heal anything, but it does hide the situation. I am not a podiatrist, but putting superglue over an exposed or injured nail bed sounds like the last resort to me.

Just keep it clean. Fresh water after every session. The skin is more resilient than it looks. But keep in mind that surfing with an open wound carries an infection risk. If the area is bleeding, increasingly painful, red, swollen or producing discharge, stay out of the water and seek medical advice.

And stay away from the horseshoe crabs!

^{VID OF THE WEEK}

🐶 Surf’s pup!

The New York Times has the best selection of photographs from the 10th World Dog Surfing Championships in Linda Mar/Pacifica that took place last weekend.

Which we cannot share because copyright.

This is the next best thing. Especially the GoPro footage.

^{LATEST FROM GIRLS WHO CAN’T SURF GOOD}

💬 3 things we’re figuring out this week

🌴 Where in the world has warm water, mellow longboarding, and low winds within three hours of an airport, this week? Community top picks: Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula (Playa Langosta, Tamarindo, and Grande all endorsed by a member who just landed home from a month there and said it didn't rain once the whole time), Southern Baja, Popoyo in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Oahu's South Shore. Key local intel: don't trust the weather apps, because rainy season in Costa Rica right now is a few hours at night, not all-day rain.

🌍 Where should you book a surf camp for September or October? Community top picks: Morocco leads (Mirleft specifically recommended for September conditions per a member who lives there, Taghazout still a favorite, and Salty Chicas running women-organized camps), Portugal (Peniche and Madeira Island both strongly endorsed), Cantabria's Somo in Spain, Sri Lanka's Riptide Surfhouse, and Camburi and Maresias on Brazil's north coast if you want to surf world champ Gabriel Medina's home break.

🌺 Starting to surf at 40+ after living on Maui for nine years? A member finally decided to try, and we’re ready for it. What to do: take a lesson your first week, find your people, and remember that everyone was new once.

👉 Join us for more recs, chatter, and support

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

🗞️ Rippin Rosie won a medal. Californians won everything else. A robot joined the lineup.

🐕 Rippin Rosie takes extra-large at the World Dog Surfing Championships
Several thousand people packed Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica to watch about 30 top US surfing dogs compete, with Rippin Rosie, a 5-year-old Labrador, winning the extra-large category and the overall Surfing Spirit award.

🏆 Jake Marshall and Sierra Kerr win the 2026 US Open of Surfing
Jake Marshall (USA) took the men's final over Kanoa Igarashi and Sierra Kerr (AUS) took the women's final over Isla Huppatz, in two-foot onshore surf at Huntington.

🥶 The Alaska tidal bore can carry you for six miles or kill you
Turnagain Arm's twice-daily bore can carry a skilled surfer for up to an hour in 45-degree water lined with quicksand-like glacial silt.

🏗️ A Wavegarden surf park is coming to Britannia Beach, BC by 2029
Fifty kilometers north of Vancouver, Spanish company Wavegarden is building South Britannia Surf, a six-acre park with intermediate-to-expert waves opening in 2029.

🤖 A shark surveillance robot is being tested for the LA 2028 Olympics
The CSULB Shark Lab has unveiled an underwater robot that will patrol Lower Trestles and Long Beach ahead of the 2028 Olympics to detect tagged sharks and relay real-time data to lifeguards.

🌺 A first North Shore session, arranged by a Hinge date
Tracks Magazine ran a first-person piece about a Californian's first Oahu North Shore session at Chun’s via a Hinge date, and her best tip: skip Matsumoto shave ice, go to Aoki's.

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{ALL THINGS THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY}

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⬆️ Aaaaaaand that was the last wave of the week!
If a friend forwarded this and you liked it, hit subscribe & join us! We will see you all next week! 🌊

With stoke,

Zuz & The Wipeout Weekly