🏄‍♀️ There will be no smiling in the lineup 😳

👋 Happy Gorgeous Grandma Day! Which is pretty fitting since one of our stories is about surfing and adventurous aging.

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• There will be no smiling in the lineup 😳

• Don’t you get faded! 🫠 

• We’re signing up for adventurous aging 🙋‍♀️

• From Ecuador to flat & curvy swimsuits 👙

• Surf news roundup 🗞️

^SURFODRAMA

🏄🏻‍♀️ There will be no smiling in the lineup 😳

I have pretty thick skin when it comes to surfing and dealing with surfing people. It comes with the territory of knowing where surfing came from, writing about how bad it used to be, and experiencing how bad it still is.

Even if I'm dreaming of everyone getting along in the lineup, I'm a surf realist. Surfing is the worst.

Not much about surfing surprises me any more. Until this week, that is. There was a post. It's always a post. And the comments that follow.

🙋‍♀️ The ask
The ask was mild and grounded in reality.

When another surfer, particularly another woman, is in the water near you and you make eye contact, is a nod too much?

Not a friendship, not a conversation, not a free pass on a wave. A nod.

🤨 A common sense check
Now, a common sense check before we begin.

Surfing means different things to different people. Some see it as a team sport, others as meditation.

How we engage on the beach and in the water with other surfers goes hand in hand with what surfing means to us.

Or how bad of a day we're having. Or whether we’re hard of hearing, surfing without our contacts, or wearing earplugs to prevent surfer’s ear.

But honestly, are we going to argue over a nod?

Will we purposefully go down the ever-so-expected rabbit hole of: men are the worst, women are the worst, society sucks?

Of course, we will. This is social media. The gloves are off, manners out of the window.

👓 Valid reasons for not nodding
There are many valid reasons why surfers don't actively engage with other surfers in the lineup.

Vision, for one. A lot of us surf without glasses or contacts because prescription eyewear can’t reliably survive a turtle roll. Some of us can’t tell a smile from a scowl at ten feet.

Add sun on water and the fact that most of us are looking at the horizon and not at each other, and a nod that never came back might just be a nod that was never seen.

Then there is everything else.

Some members surf to decompress after work, or through heartbreaking events, or the kind of week that doesn't leave anything for anyone else.

The water is their therapy, and it is cheaper than a therapist. A few of us are introverts who assume nobody is talking to us anyway.

And a few of us are so focused that our concentration face gets read as grumpiness at every lineup we paddle into.

All fair.

🚨 But it's about safety
What's not fair is an adamant refusal to see another surfer's point of view. When someone asks you for a nod in the water, they are often asking you about safety.

Not fellowship and not chat. Safety. I see you, do you see me?

But you're not a lifeguard, you're not a surf coach, you're just out here enjoying yourself, right?

Things go sideways in the water more often than we like to remember. Boards fly loose, people get held down, a rip drags a surfer thirty yards down the beach.

You wouldn't walk straight past a building on fire, would you? I know. The analogy is extreme. So is the ocean.

🌊 The ocean is not a special moral zone
I understand why this pattern exists. Surfing is intense, waves are a limited resource. It is the one hour in the week you get to yourself. You go out to escape people, not to frantically greet them.

I know. I do the same thing.

But wanting solitude doesn’t require us to refuse to acknowledge the person next to you.

And it doesn't give us automatic permission to be uncivil, as if surfing matters more than people.

Somehow, somewhere in surfing, we decided that wasn't true. That the lineup is a specific moral exception zone where the same social rules that apply everywhere else are suspended. That because the wave is important, the person is not.

You don't have to nod. But maybe, just perhaps, don't frown at others extending you this courtesy.

^{WORD OF THE WEEK}

🫠 Don’t you get faded!

When I can no longer stare at my screen, I randomly open the Encyclopedia of Surfing in search of an obscure, I-have-never-heard-this-one-before bit of surf lingo.

Have you heard of a fade? Yeah, me neither.

According to the EOS, a fade is an angled descent down the wave face, usually performed just after takeoff. A surfer initially heads toward the steeper, breaking part of the wave, then turns and rides in the opposite direction, away from the whitewater and across the unbroken wall.

The fade is sometimes used to set up a tube ride. It has to be timed correctly if you want it to look impressive in photos. The fade also has a variation called an S-turn. A more self-explanatory name, for sure. It involves a linked series of turns: first riding toward the wave’s shoulder, then turning back into the critical part of the wave before finishing with a bottom turn.

What I find most interesting about a fade is that it can double as an asshole move. Although a fade is a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre, a surfer can use one to cut in front of someone else and delay their turn until that person can no longer make the wave. A less dramatic version of a drop-in, perhaps, but an asshole move nevertheless.

May you never be faded!

^{SURFER GIRL OF THE WEEK}

🙋‍♀️ We’re signing up for adventurous aging

We rarely, read never, recommend another surf newsletter. But this one comes from one of our own.

Inessa Love, a longtime Girls Who Can’t Surf Good member, learned to surf in August 2020 because there was nothing else to do. At 5'2" and 110 pounds, it took her two years to stop pearling every other wave. Read her story.

Today, she surfs almost every day in Hawai’i, and co-founded Sassy Silver Surfers, a Facebook community for women over 50. She’s also the creator of @SassySilverSurfers on Instagram.

Inessa is passionate about surfing, healthy and active living, empowering women, and building community.

She’s just launched a monthly newsletter mixing inspiring stories with a little science (“because I’m a geek,” she says) and personal updates on aging with intention. It’s for anyone curious about active, joyful, adventurous aging which, honestly, is all of us eventually.

👉 Subscribe to Inessa’s newsletter

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

💬 3 things we’re figuring out this week

🇪🇨 Beginner-ish surf spot near Guayaquil, Ecuador: wellness-oriented, plant-based friendly, sleep right by the water, longboard-friendly, and NOT Montañita? Community top picks: Ayampe and Las Tunas (beach breaks that work for longboarding when the swell isn't huge, lots of clean eating and "comunidad holistica"), Hermanos Perdidos hostel in Las Tunas for the community vibe, Canoa on the north coast for consistent all-year waves and vegan-friendly hosts, and La Punta as a quieter alternative if you'd consider staying just outside Montañita after all.

🇳🇮 Nicaragua surf camp for someone catching their own waves and learning to cross-step, between Popoyo and Playa Maderas? Community top picks: Chica Brava in San Juan del Sur (based in SJDS but takes you to different beaches based on swell and skill level, 3 hours of coaching a day, all-women, yoga included), Rise Up Surf (multiple Nicaragua locations, the instructors got the loudest reviews), Sardina Surf Camp in Popoyo (locally owned, right on the beach, coaches all levels), Popoyo Surf Camp for a slightly cheaper beachfront option, and Magnific Rock and Miramar as additional favorites. Note: September is Nicaragua's peak season, so waves get bigger and rain more frequent than winter months.

👙 Swimsuit that stays put for flat-and-curvy or pear-shaped surfers, without going full-cheeky? Community top picks: O'Neill Hyperfreak (won last week's pear thread too, great stretch and coverage), Seea for durability and coverage, Jolyn Surf Collection, Mollusk for pear silhouettes, TYR for bum coverage, Speedo one-piece if you check the leg cut, and Ramana Surf's bikini shorts with zip pockets. Winki Suits and Sunward Bound also got shoutouts.

👉 Join us for more recs, chatter, and support

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

🗞️ Crocodiles. Sharks. Fog. Also—board shorts, Point Break returns and a new Canadian wave.

🐊 A saltwater crocodile was filmed in the lineup at Macaronis
Filmer Scotty Hammonds captured a large saltwater crocodile cruising the estuary beside one of the world's most famous waves in the Mentawai Islands.

🦈 A shark took a chunk out of a foam board in Northern California
A surfer at Moonstone Beach in Humboldt County had a wedge bitten out of his foam board over the weekend.

🎥 Surfline webcams are now helping scientists study Oregon's coastal fog
A UC Davis and USDA Forest Service study used publicly available surfing webcams to map patchy fog patterns along 93 miles of the Oregon coast.

🩳 Board short summer: fashion co-opts surfers, again
The Guardian reports that Miu Miu put satin board shorts on the catwalk and Louis Vuitton built an 8-metre wave in Paris for its show. Meanwhile, Vinted searches for board shorts are up 132% since last July.

🎬 Point Break is coming back to theaters
Fathom is bringing Kathryn Bigelow's Keanu Reeves–Patrick Swayze surf-heist classic back to cinemas August 16 and 19 for its 35th anniversary.

🌊 Calgary is expanding its Bow River wave
The city unveiled plans to turn the wave that formed under Louise Bridge after the 2013 floods into a more permanent surf spot.

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{ALL THINGS THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY}

_{The Wipeout Weekly—our home and digital magazine.
The Wee Surf Shoppe—explore useful, cute, and sometimes simply outrageous surf “stuffs”.
The Wipeout Weekly podcast—surf stories and guests.
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Girls Who Can’t Surf Good—an 87k-member-strong private group on Facebook.}
Feedback—we do want to hear from you! Whatever is on your mind, drop us a line.

⬆️ 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