Turns out, there’s space for us all. 

Picture - Ocean Sisters 


If you know me (which I’m almost certain you don’t), I go absolutely feral for this stuff. Like, unreasonably excited. The kind of excited that makes people slightly concerned at parties. And nothing sets me off quite like watching people find something that genuinely lights them up. Especially when that something is as cool, as chest-expanding, as totally unexpected, in the best possible way, as the rise of women’s surf communities.

There is just something so powerful, so raw, and let’s be honest - rebellious about groups of women, all over the world, deciding the ocean is theirs now too. Literally just going for it. Women, boards, waves, and an energy that frankly the surf world has needed for a very long time.

Let me paint you a picture.

A friend of mine who lives in Mile End, Hackney, for full context, not exactly known for sun-soaked sand and its barrel waves, went to Peru (YES PERU) for a women's surf camp. And she sent me a video of herself completely losing it in the water. In all the ways. Arms everywhere. Board going one direction, body going another, the ocean absolutely winning. And then she comes up, saltwater everywhere, hair plastered all over her usual perfectly coiffed hair, with this look on her face that I can only describe as pure, unfiltered, childlike joy. The kind of joy you haven’t seen on someone’s face since they were about seven. And it was their birthday. And there was a piñata and a trampoline.

That video got me. Like really got me. Because that ripple effect  (and yes, I’m going there with the wave metaphor, I’m only human) goes way further than the stretch of Pacific she just got catapulted across. It comes through the screen. It lingers. It makes you think: wait, could I do that? Even if you’re a mum of two whose most recent aquatic experience was a slightly chaotic swimming lesson in Zone 2.

That’s what these communities are doing. Not just teaching women to surf, bu making it feel possible.

You know the drill of how we got here. Degree. Job that eats your identity for a few years. The relationship, the kids, the mum guilt that arrives with children and…. plot twist….apparently never fully clocks off. The long stretch where your own desires migrate to the bottom of the to-do list, somewhere below book dentist and find out what that noise is in the car.

But then you see a friend’s Instagram story from a coastline you’ve never even heard of, let alone been to. And after you get a WhatsApp message that says ‘I found this surf camp, it’s just women, should we…..?’ and for some reason- maybe the timing, maybe you’ve just had enough of your own excuses- you feel an overwhelming heart-pumping visceral urge to say yes.

And when you do - here are just SOME of the awesome women building these communities around the world: 

Ocean Sisters

Ocean Sisters, founded by Julia, who opens her home on the north coast of Spain as a base for the community, started as exactly that. A WhatsApp group. It is now a network of thousands of women across Europe, built around surfing, travel, and the specific magic that happens when you do something terrifying alongside people who are equally terrified and pretending slightly less than you are. Nobody is performing coolness in the line-up. Everyone wiping out. Everyone fine about it.

SOMA 

In São Tomé — a tiny island in the Gulf of Guinea that most people couldn't place on a map- surfing was, like many other places, just for boys.

SOMA changed that. In 2020, a group of girls paddled out for the first time in the country's history. Since then, SOMA has organised the first national surf championships in São Tomé to include women, with equal prizes. A girl represented her country in competition overseas for the first time ever. They've been covered by CNN and National Geographic. And it all started with some boards, some girls, and the idea that this was actually allowed.

One participant, Daniela, said it best: "In the beginning it was a place of fear. Now it's a place of joy."

Hard to argue with that.

Sirenas del Surf

In Ecuador, Sirenas del Surf — founded by Iva (@sirenas.del.surf), an Argentinian expat who arrived in Ecuador, fell in love with the coast, and never left has built a sisterhood around the Pacific. The thing about learning to surf as an adult the total, unguarded vulnerability of it, your body doing new things in front of strangers who are also doing new things pulls people together fast. You make friends at a speed that adult life doesn’t usually permit.

No Shoes No Worries

No Shoes No Worries founded by Andy (@noshoesnoworries), a writer, surfer, model based in Sydney, has turned this into their whole world. Women-led retreats, women from different countries and skill levels and life chapters, all in the water together. Some have been surfing for years. Some tried it for the first time last month.

Kini Surf

Built from a WhatsApp group in Japan, Kini Surf brings together women to surf and to be honest, it looks like THE total crew I want to be part of. And when the waves go flat? They went to the mountain instead. Two seasons, one group chat, genuinely no fuss. Oh, and the woman behind it? Fu is also an incredible DJ. Which somehow makes perfect sense.

What's more awesome about these communities is who's in them. Because a lot of these women are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, (60s anyone?), proving to us all who previously absorbed the idea that surfing had an expiry date, that if you didn't grow up salt-soaked and board-under-arm, the window had already closed. 

But the BEST thing about all of this? These communities are genuinely enriching women's lives in a way that crept up on all of us. They gave us permission to say yes. To make new friends. To travel. To empower. To be spectacularly bad at something, in public, in a wetsuit that does nobody any favours. Nothing quite dismantles the ego like getting absolutely ragdolled by a wave in front of a line-up of hot surfers, coughing up a lung and then paddling straight back out with what little dignity you have left (said with absolute experience in the matter).

And yes, gorgeous lifelong memories.

So, go say yes to that surf trip. It might just be the best gift you will ever give yourself. 

Lorna Evans - Offshore