“I’ve never gone this fast before. Just hold on. There’s kind of some bumps and I’m just trying to shock absorb everything and then yeah I finally made it to the bottom. I felt like I was going down forever. I was like wow I’m still going down, I’m still going down. I made it to the bottom and was thinking, okay you need to bottom turn. I had so much speed I couldn’t turn the board. When you’re going that fast you’re kind of just going straight because you need to set your rail.”

In this episode we connect with Delia Bense-Kang, a former Surf With Amigas instructor and big wave surfer. Although she hasn’t always identified as a, “big wave surfer”, since learning to surf as a young girl, she has consistently run towards what most of us would consider to be big waves. Finding and pushing her limits first in the in the cold heavy waves of Northern California, to now making a life in the even heavier warm water waves of Hawaii and chasing swells worldwide with the big wave community. In this episode, Delia shares a recent story of her biggest wave (and wipeout) in Todos Santos, Mexico, her tips for dealing with fear, training, and other techniques we can all use to build our own confidence and capabilities in the water.

A PREVIEW OF THIS EPISODE:

“You take a boat out, you’re by an island, there’s emerald blue water. And then we get out there and all these big wave legends were out. It was a full hero session. And then I was like, I’m here too, hi!I feel like in the lineups in those situations, everyone is wanting each other to succeed and be safe and cheering each other on and it’s not as much of a gnarly, jockeying lineup.

So it was kind of one of those scary sessions where you’re just sitting and you’re like, I don’t know if I’m too far inside or too far outside because there hasn’t been a wave in 30 minutes. Then all of a sudden this big wave would come through.

So after being out there for probably like at least an hour, maybe a little bit longer, again, just kind of letting a couple waves go by and watching what everyone’s doing, not paddling straight to the peak, you know, respecting lineup. A wave had come through that no one paddled for and it kind of stood up all of a sudden and I was like, oh, I thought that was a catchable wave. And then, I saw another wave coming through and it didn’t look giant at first. It was just kind of popping, you know, that bump popping up the lineup. And I was in the right place and I just swung around, because no one else was turning. So I was like, all right, I’ll go.”

Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

“I think that [decolonization in surf tourism] might be a frustrating topic because people want answers and solutions, but decolonization is a lens. It’s a way of seeing things that raise these sorts of critical questions to then move towards solutions that are decolonizing.”

In the past several years, we have seen global explosions in surf tourism. In many ways, it feels inevitable. More and more people are discovering the joys of the ocean, embarking on their surf journeys and learning how to both read and ride waves. As surfers, we’re perpetually searching for the next swell, that exhilarating moment when we precariously perch on a slab of foam while careening down a wall of water. Most will stop at nothing to experience that feeling again and again, even if it means entering a pressurized can and cramming your body into a small seat next to a lavatory for 18 hours. But what does it mean for these foreign, often isolated communities when we, as surf travelers, enter their communities in search of the perfect wave?

In this episode, Holly and Jackie discuss what surf tourism looks like in today’s world with Tara Ruttenberg. Tara has a PhD in Development Studies and wrote her thesis on the decolonization of surf tourism. She shares her story of learning to surf, what brought her to study surf tourism in Costa Rica and discusses some of the topics in her thesis. Listen as Holly, Jackie and Tara share stories and their own experiences in the surf tourism industry while also attempting to answer questions like: What does it mean to decolonize oneself? Is there such a thing as sustainable surf tourism? Whether you are a regular or aspiring international surf traveler, this episode’s conversation offers important perspectives to consider in our ever growing, globalized world.

A PREVIEW OF THIS EPISODE:

“So some people define decolonization as returning land to native and indigenous people. So that’s kind of a hard line that some people take but decolonization is not a metaphor. It’s not only this kind of an umbrella term for liberation or social emancipation. [So] I take that approach, but kind of add on, based on the reality that many other things beside land have been colonized through processes of colonization, right? We can think about ideas being colonized. We can think about bodies being colonized. So decolonization can mean the undoing of these things.”

So in the surf tourism context, it means how, if you’re thinking about it from a land perspective, how is land being returned to local people, local surfers, for example, or local communities. It can also mean who has jurisdiction or governance over local resources, or [refer to] how women are interacting in surfing spaces in ways that are undoing relationships of colonization and patriarchy.

So surf culture in Costa Rica exists at the intersection of local culture and foreign surf tourism as a starting point. There’s some assertion of localism that other expats surfers feel in places here, and with or without recognition of the colonial privilege that they bring into these places. So what makes them get to assert some sort of localism or decide that they are locals in these places and therefore have something to say about what you’re (Surf With Amigas) doing?

And looking at who’s doing the localism and what the localism is doing, what it’s upholding or what it’s trying to tear down, that’s a line of questioning that I find fascinating. One of the things or the conclusions that we came to with that article is that there can be some really interesting forms of cooperation or community forged between local surfers and women surfers that can resist some of these more neocolonial experiences in surfing tourism. Because looking at it from kind of a broader picture reality with a lens of colonization, women surfers and local surfers are the ones being edged out or marginalized.”

Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

“Sometimes I forget it even happened. You know, I’m like, oh yeah, remember that moment that I almost got eaten by a dinosaur?”

Continue reading “Overcoming Fear: SWA Instructor Megan Halavais Shares Her Shark Attack Story”