Just stand up! OK, Uncle, says Becca.

👋 Hey, I'm Becca.

I never had a Waikiki surfer girl on my bingo card growing up in central Wisconsin. I spent a summer living in California when I was 19 and I didn’t spend much time in the ocean, even though I lived on the beach. It isn’t until a midlife crisis brings me to Hawaii at the age of 45 that I start dabbling in the surf. At first, it’s just me and a friend and a rented board, pushing each other into the waves that break on the sandbar in front of the pink hotel in Waikiki. We go on Sunday mornings before it gets too crowded.

🏄‍♀️ Lessons with a local

Eventually, I decide I need lessons if I really want to learn to surf and I know I’ll get better instruction and Kama’Aina prices if I look for a local rather than use the tourist shops near the beach. I’m not sure where to find one so when I see a fella gliding down the boardwalk on an ancient banana style skateboard with a longboard under each arm, I know he’s the one.

He hops off his board because of the crowds so I approach him and ask about lessons. Every Friday for a month, he takes me out to the break known as Canoes right at first light. Just as I’m starting to get the hang of surfing, it comes time for me to travel to the mainland. I still spend summers in Wisconsin. As soon as I get back to Oahu in September, I call him and make arrangements to get back on his Friday morning schedule, but we really only have three more lessons together.

🏄🏻‍♀️ My new board

The first two sessions have me back up  riding waves from the main break. In the third session, I bring my own board with me. It’s much smaller than the 11-foot standup paddle board I am learning on, and he thinks it’s too short even though it’s a really nice board. It is a 9’2” Hawaiian Surf Designs shaped by George Ku that I find on Craigslist after trolling the site all summer looking for the right mix of size, style, and price point. I catch a couple of waves but can’t stand up on my new board so we swap and he rides the Ku while I ride the SUP and we agree to surf the next wave into the beach. We don’t realize it will be the last time we see each other.

After that lesson, he gives me a ride to the surf shop where I store my board. An older Hawaiian gentleman stops me in the parking lot to look at the board. He recognizes the logo and knows the shaper. He asks some questions about it and when I tell him I am not sure if it is the right size board for me, he looks at the board, which he is still holding, and then he looks me up and down. He hands my board back and says, “you’re athletic enough, you’ll figure it out.”

☀️ Sunrise surfing alone

The next week, I text and call for another lesson but the messages remain unanswered; still, I head to the beach hoping to see my friend. He’s not there but I surf the sunrise on my own, still struggling to pop up. The next time I show up on the beach, I ask for pop up advice from one of the uncles that works the rental shop on the beach. He tosses his head back, laughs a little, and says “I donno, you just stand up.” I’ve been surfing a few times a week ever since, and every time I go, I reflect on what a tremendous gift surfing is to have given me.

Now, when I sit out in the surf break, and look out towards the ocean, I can read the waves all the way to the horizon. I spent eight years in college studying surficial processes and landforms, hydrogeology, plant physiology, and water chemistry. I took it seriously enough that all these years later, I can see sets of waves coming and I know how they’re going to break. They’re showing us the shape of the bottom of the ocean.

🌊 The wave chooses

It is in this way, on a Friday afternoon in April 2025, that I find myself looking at incoming sets and knowing that not the current set, or the one after it, but the next one is going to bury me. The forecast said 3- to 4-foot faces, but I can tell that the third wave in that set will be much bigger. I wait out the current set and the next one, rising, and falling as the waves rise and break, one after another. Surfers are positioning themselves to catch the waves, but I’m not brave enough. I track the timing between the current set and the next one instead.

I’ve been pearl diving on waves the size of the incoming set and it's not an experience I want to repeat. I contemplate how to avoid disaster. As soon as the third wave of the next set passes, I lay down on my board and paddle towards the inside break. My paddling speed improves dramatically based on tips I receive from a friend, but I’m not sure if I can make it to the inside break before the next set arrives. It’s a short-period swell. I check over my shoulder repeatedly.

This time, I turn and look, and I know the first wave in the third set, the set that is going to bury me, is about to break. I’m in position to be on the peak and I’m already paddling pretty fast. I really have no choice. I have to take this wave. I always tell people, “the waves chose me as much as I chose them,” and for better or worse, we have chosen each other.

🚀 The ride of my life

In an instant, it picks me up and I know I’m on it; I don’t have adequate control of my lower legs. I can see the nose of my board starting to submerge and I know that pearl diving is imminent if I don’t pop-up fast enough. And I know my pop-up is more of a scramble than anything, despite the maddeningly effective pop-up advice from the beach boys. I already know it’s too late, and I’m moving too fast to get on my feet.

I snap my legs together, and I shift my hips backward into a child’s pose, shoving my board out in front of me, and pulling the nose up enough to ride out the drop. Not even a second later, I pivot onto my feet in a low, wide squat. Hands gripping the rail. It still amazes me how fast I’m going when I catch even the smallest of waves. When I feel stable enough, I stand up and carve out a few turns before the wave loses contact with the bottom and falls apart.

It’s the biggest wave I have ever surfed without eating shit.