by Alyssa J. O’Brien

Women of all ages gather for water time. Photo credit: Alyssa J. O'Brien

The secret to the coast is that summer happens in fall. Instead of the foggy, gloomy days of June, July and even August, the weather can be at its best when the kids are back in school, the leaves begin to turn, and the fog disappears. For locals and visiting coastal lovers, this is the best time to get in the water!

Everyone has a favorite method: Roll up your pant legs and jump in the waves, paddle out on a surfboard, or slide out on a sea kayak. But there’s another way to enjoy the water: Skim over breaking waves and into shore on a bodyboard and feel the close connection between you and the ocean.

While the coast often celebrates its surfers, both men and women, there is another group of women whose dedication to the water merits recognition: the women bodyboarders of Half Moon Bay. These women range in age from 27 to 77, with most in their 40s and 50s. They gather down on the beaches in full wetsuits, hoods and booties. As many as 12 have been seen sailing in together on the same wave, and people walking on the cliffs above have heard their cries of joy.

Roslyn Ramsey, one of the more active bodyboarders, usually walks to the water to see how the ocean looks before activating the phone chain. “More people should try bodyboarding,” she said. “It’s great exercise and you catch more waves than surfing because you can get an awesome ride on all sorts of waves.” Ramsey has lived on the coast for 35 years and been riding waves for over 10. She explained that women bodyboarders are different from surfers: “Our motto is that we ride anything. No wave is too big or too small.”

Love for the water shows itself in the women’s technique. They launch down the steep face of a large set, slide into the curl of a beautifully breaking wave, or bounce on the whitewash all the way into shore. Often, the women share the water with a curious seal, a pod of dolphins, or even a whale passing in the distance.
Many of the women bodyboarders ride without fins, so while they don’t catch the biggest waves far out from shore, they do experience the pleasure of skimming along a thin surface of white water right up onto the sandy beach.

Ravn Miller skims the whitewash. Photo credit: Carla Brooke

When asked why she bodyboards, wave rider Carla Brooke explained, “I feel free out in the water.” Brooke shared another mantra of the group: “Never say no to the water.” When the phone chain is activated, the women drop work, rearrange their busy schedules, and walk, bike or drive down to the beach to catch some quality “water time.”

Respected History of the Bodyboard
Riding the waves on a bodyboard has a rich and respected history. Polynesians first constructed boards of wood slabs, or tied materials such as reeds and palm fronds together. In Hawaii, the earliest surfers rode body-size wooden boards called “belly boards” or “paipos.” Europeans who encountered this sport marveled at the “great art” of the bodyboarding Hawaiians. Lieutenant James King of the HMS Discovery, who served under Captain Cook and later took command of the ship, recorded in his ship’s log:

“[They] lay themselves flat upon an oval piece of plank about their Size and breadth, they keep their legs close on top of it, & their Arms are us’d to guide the plank, they wait the time of the greatest Swell that sets on Shore, & altogether push forward with their Arms to keep on its top, it sends them in with a most astonishing Velocity,   & the great art is to guide the plank so as always to keep it in a proper direction on the top of the Swell,    & as it alters its direction.”

Nearly 200 years after King’s account, Tom Morey introduced the first commercial bodyboard. He cobbled one together out of scrap polyethylene foam and newspaper for his own wave-riding enjoyment on July 7, 1971, but by 1980, the Morey Boogie board had become a runaway success, allowing thousands of water-lovers to plane through the waves.

Today, bodyboarding has gained esteem. Hawaii’s famous Pipeline hosts a world bodyboarding championship every year, and international competitions and professional bodyboarding associations thrive in every continent. Professional bodyboarding moves include aerials, barrel rolls and 360 degree spins. But bodyboarding is a sport for all kinds of waves. The ocean can be choppy or glassy; the waves can be large or small.

Women wave riders of Half Moon Bay

The rising tide of respect for bodyboarding owes a lot to women. Bruce Jenkins writes in his book, North Shore Chronicles, “It’s entirely possible that the new generation of Hawaiian women will be bodyboarding, not surfing.” Jenkins names female role models, including Carol Philips, who rides Pipeline, and Phyllis Dameron, who bodyboards Waimea when the waves get to 20 feet. Dameron told Jenkins that her technique entails skipping over waves and avoiding surfers: “If you’re skipping like a stone, you can land anywhere. And guys get intimidated by that. I’ll go right over ‘em, in the air if I have to, and it makes ‘em nervous to see me flying around like that. The bigger the wave, the more you want to be airborne.”
As an international sport and one in which women excel in professional competitions, bodyboarding is not just for kids. The women bodyboarders of Half Moon Bay have tapped into this history, and now they are making history of their own.

Getting Started: Advice and Warnings
Any activity involving the Pacific Ocean should be approached with caution. The following advice will make for safer, better wave-riding and help you avoid danger.

•    Get the gear: A wet suit is necessary for these waters, and the women bodyboarders recommend booties and hoods. Buy or rent a board with a leash that attaches to your wrist or upper arm.
•    Never go alone. You can find other bodyboarders near the jetty at Princeton Harbor, in Pacifica’s Linda Mar, or down at Dunes Beach. Bodyboarding with others is more fun!
•    Pick a spot away from surfers and respect their space. There’s plenty of ocean out there.
•    Look for waves that break gently, with long stretches of whitewash. Avoid beach breakers — waves that crash straight down with no white water to ride in.
•    Watch for rip tides. While surfers ride these currents like escalators, if you don’t have fins, look out for water surfaces that ripple like a river. If caught, swim parallel to the shore until the current releases you.
•    Consider taking a life-saving swim class.

The coastline between the jetty and Francis Beach offers places with waves that are perfect for bodyboarding, and this time of year, with the fog burned back, the ocean turned glassy, and the warm days of coastal Indian summer upon us, is the perfect time to step into the water. Follow the respected history of bodyboarding and join a session with the women wave riders of Half Moon Bay!