A lot of people think that I only surfed Mavericks once. They don’t know that I continued to surf there. I didn't ever surf Mavericks to be known for that. For me it was about curiosity and exploration— exploring the boundaries. I'm a chemist and a scientist. I'm very curious. I look up and I go, “What's that out there? I want to see what that is. I want to touch that. I want to feel that.” And so it was this kind of internal drive.

The first time I surfed there was in the winter of 1999. I was in grad school, getting my PhD in Chemistry. I had paddled out there twice before and I just sat on the shoulder and looked at it and was like, “Wow, this is really heavy. It was definitely heavier than any of the waves I had surfed on Oahu, and I had surfed Waimea.”

I was not sure if I was gonna catch waves. I was with my husband, Mike, and he went straight to the bowl—he had been there several times and knew the lineup—and I was just checking it out. And some guy had just caught a wave and was paddling back out, and he said to me, “This is a good spot. Here comes one, right now.” It was so cool, just like, “You should go for this one.” 

And I went for it and it was so incredible. The thing that really stood out to me was obviously the height, but because of the way it draws up off the reef, as I’m paddling in it’s getting bigger and bigger and bigger and dropping out beneath me. 

All of a sudden it's like 20 feet down. And as I was getting to my feet I remembered people had told me to focus on the nose of the board so you don’t get lost in this big space. So I just focus on the nose of the board, making sure that it doesn't pearl. 

And I remember dropping in and going, “Oh, I’m still dropping in, and I'm still dropping in, and then all of a sudden I was looking at this wave, you know, this massive wall, and going, “Am I in the right spot? Am I ever gonna get to the bottom?”  

And I rode it fine. And then I caught a couple more waves, and that was amazing. That was in February, and then we went back up in March, And there was a local guy who was photographing body borders, and he got a picture of me, and that's the first picture that was ever captured. And when I got home there was a message on my machine from Surfer Magazine saying, ”Hey we heard you are the first woman to ride Mavericks!”

One season Mike was in the Mavericks contest. And I was in the water watching the contest all day, and afterwards, I paddled over and got some incredible waves. I caught my first left out there. And then and about two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, so she surfed Mavericks with me! That's probably why she likes really fast things— motorcycles and things like that.

I've gotten really hurt there. Once I was caught inside in kind of a funky position, because there was a surfer coming on a wave, and I couldn’t paddle around, so I just thought, “I have to sit here and wait and see what this person does.” I remember getting an almost direct hit from the lip and thinking, “What was that that hit me in the back of the head? Oh, that was my leg!” I got so messed up. I tore ligaments and parts of my body. It felt like a car accident.

There's no sense of the ability to control anything, and you're underwater and it’s dark, and who knows how long you're gonna be down. And one of the ways to get over the fear is to calm the brain by telling it you're gonna be all right, that you trained for this. And you just start counting. And if you get to 15 and you’re still not up, well, you start over with the counting. 

A few years ago I decided not to go back to Mavericks because I wasn't training at the level that I was comfortable with. And it's the mental training as much physical, and I was raising kids and teaching, and I just needed surfing to be there for me as a place to go and have fun. And I couldn't cope with the idea of being injured. I was like, “I want to surf today and I want to surf tomorrow.”

At 50, surfing is definitely foundational to my mental and physical well-being and, I would say, spiritual well-being. It's really been there for me as this outlet from the troubles on land, so to speak, and just the freedom of being in the water, having time to just allow my thoughts to settle or to come into focus. Sometimes that's what I need when everything's chaotic, and I can go in the water and say, “Oh, here I am.”

There were times in my life when I felt like if I didn't surf or couldn’t surf, I wouldn't be okay. That's coming from struggling with depression and anxiety and poverty and broken families, difficult life situations. Surfing was a coping skill. 

Things are more stable now in midlife, as a middle-aged woman. And the way I surf now is really different. For a long time, years, I would not be able to surf with my friends, because I chose to go surf big waves. I chose to go to the spot that none of my friends would go to. And now I'm like, “Where do you want to go? What are you riding? You longboarding? I’ll longboard. Where are you surfing? I want to surf with you.”

It’s stepping into a new way to relate with my friends and be with my friends on the water and enjoy this moment now, because we have it.

I’ve had the this incredible blessing of having mentors in my life who were in their 40s and 50s when I was in my 20s. So now those people are in their 70s, and they're still surfing, and they have shown me just how incredible surfing can be throughout your life.

I haven't surfed Mavericks since 2022. But two nights ago, I had this crazy dream where I was at Mavericks, and I woke up going, “Ah, I’m gonna surf there again!” I still have my gun. We’ll see …