Surf Girl – July 2019

40 SurfGirl Magazine

T

EENS

I started surfing in my late teens in 1994, when
surfing wasn’t that big in the UK and certainly
not for girls. Inspired by living near a beach and
seeing the boys do it, my family borrowed bodyboards
for a staycation. It took another year to source my own
second-hand board and convince my parents to take me
to the beach. Here commenced three years of hard graft.
There were no surf schools, no teachers and no short cuts.
If you couldn’t get out the back you didn’t belong there,
and encouragement was sparse. There were years of
nearly drowning, getting tumbled about like a dishcloth and
feeling immense relief to make it back to dry land.
At 18 I went to Cardiff Uni and joined the surf club. Once
a week we’d head to the Welsh coast and surf the freezing
waters there. A few competitions later, I started to get a
little better. Then three weeks in France with another female
surfer ratcheted up the surf skills, and befriending some
Aussies seemed to help. It was like surf skills by osmosis.

TWENTIES

Once university was over I no real idea of what I wanted

to do next, so I went to Australia on a gap year. After

surfing all the usual places I decided to pursue a scientific

career and went back to uni. Unfortunately, this time, there

was no surf club I could join. So it was fortunate when I

bumped into an old friend from the undergrad surf days,

and, fortuitously, his housemate became my husband a

few years down the line. However, before there was any

romance, we surfed. And when the chance came to move

in together (yep the three of us), the biggest influence on

my decision was that I knew we would surf... a lot.

In my mid-twenties, we got married and went travelling.

We had two months in Costa Rica surfing Tamarindo, Mal

Pais and Nosara. Then we went to Australia. Back then

if you showed the Australian government you could blow

a house deposit in their country, they welcomed you with

open arms. The first half of the year was spent between

Sydney and Byron. Then we went south of Sydney and I

Most of Rhiannon de Wreede’s big life decisions have been made around

surfing – from being a surf-obsessed teenager in the UK , to being a

proud mum surfing with her kids.

MY SURFING

40s

Keeping surfing in the family.