The sea spews waves like a spewing volcano spewing lava, real breakers, as big as houses and so hungry that they could swallow you up, board and suit included. These female surfers are fearless, crave the current and venture into waters that would make the pulse of experienced surfers race up to their necks at the mere sight of them. Women and girls, sisters and lone fighters: in Carolina Amell’s “Surf Like a Girl”, they all surf together – determined, free and independent.
Nicole Gormley
Encouraging others to take action – that is Nicole Gormley’s motivation. The expertise comes from studying marine biology, the tool is her camera. In doing so, she captures what humans willfully destroy when they pollute the ocean with plastic or cover the promenade with concrete: nature, which she has fallen in love with just as much as surfing the waves off the Californian coast.
Anaïs Pierquet
Life is like the ocean. Sometimes deep and stormy, sometimes shallow and calm. When Anaïs Pierquet loses her father, all the waves crash down on her at the same time, the surf, the spray. Swirling with emotions, she moves to Bali, gets on her board and finally finds beautiful thoughts again while paddling towards the horizon.
Elle Sampiere
Social conventions are the shackles of our generation. Nothing for Elle Sampiere, who slips the irons over her delicate joints and simply does what she wants: to become a professional surfer, as a petite blonde in a male-dominated sport. She travels the world, from contest to contest, to prove once and for all that ability is not a question of gender. But of the will.
Ikit & Aping Agudo
If there were an earthly paradise, it would be in the Philippines. This is where Ikit and Aping grew up, on the island of Siargao, in a family with many mouths to feed. Between school, working in their own rice fields and helping out on dad’s fishing boat, there has always been time for exploring the sea, which lies on Ikit and Aping’s doorstep like the red carpet in front of the Dolby Theatre in LA. The longboard is a tool and a lover in one, the opportunity to earn money and enjoy life.
Anne Taravet
Prejudice, resistance. Until Anne Taravet was finally on the board, the action was intense. Surfing was for junkies, the parents said, or for boys, Moroccan society. Moving from Morocco to France made her one of ten female surfers in the nation, and competitions, prizes and trophies followed. But the battle for victory was not for the now 61-year-old, who still prefers to enjoy the tranquillity that the board and the sea provide.
Liz Clark
Liz Clark has 20,000 nautical miles behind her. She has been traveling on her sailing boat since 2006. Searching, questioning. When she’s not sitting on deck writing in her logbook, she encourages other people to protect the sea and nature, or jumps into the surf with her board, where she finds the peace on the waves that sailing can’t give her.
Samia Lilian
Swedish blood mixes with Sinhalese blood in Samia Lilian’s veins. A wild cocktail that is reflected in her facial features and in the confidence with which she controls the longboard as if it were the joystick of a games console. She is the first woman to get on a board in Sri Lanka – because she can’t help it, because she loves it, sand in her hair, salt on her skin, and because it’s the right thing to do for the head designer of Surf Sri Lanka magazine.
Tiffany Carothers, Martina Burtscher & Amanda Prifti
Life as a woman in Sri Lanka is a hurdle race. Bikini? Are you still okay? Surfing? Men’s business! The Americans Tiffany and Amanda, together with the Austrian Martina and local women, set up the Arugam Bay Girls Surf Club, encouraging the latter to venture into the waves despite their sari and not to be ashamed of their love of riding the board.
Stéphanie Goldie
She has two sons, sweet and healthy, and was on the board until the second was eight months old. Perhaps this light-heartedness is due to the French air, but perhaps also to the fact that the midwife always conquered the waves at Stéphanie’s side. Two years ago, she and her friends founded Elles Surf, a platform for female surfers who plunge into the waves just as fearlessly.
Camille Robiou du Pont
Leaving cold France behind, she travels to Asia, to the Philippines, where she films and photographs and is inspired by nature. The Frenchwoman Camille with the melodious sing-song surname Robiou du Pont doesn’t know where she wants to go – and she doesn’t have to. For now, it’s enough that she finds her happiness on the board, tomorrow by tomorrow, day by day.
Surf Like a Girl
From Portugal to Hawaii. In the Atlantic or Pacific. Standing on the board or in yoga pose. The surfers that Carolina Amell brings together in her book have one thing in common: they are women. Baby bump or old age? No reason to lay your board on the sand and let the sun shine on your belly. Women of all ages, those who see surfing as meditation and others who are driven by ambition and thrills to go out to sea again and again, make “Surf Like a Girl” an incentive to get going themselves. Carolina Amell, “Surf Like a Girl”, Hardcover, Prestel, ca. 50.-
