Dressed for success, you come to work with wet hair and seaweed between
your toes. Your boss is 20 feet in the air, barreling through a tube of water.
For a pro surfer, it's just another day at the office.
Jenny Hudnall wears a suit to work that only a grandma could love. "My
business suit is a wetsuit. I got up in the morning and I told my grandma,
'Yeah, I put on my suit.' And she's thinking [it's] some linen suit!"
Hudnall's grandma doesn't know what a neoprene wetsuit is, although she's
been surrounded by wave babies for years. Hudnall's dad is also a surfer.
She remembers how he introduced her to the sport. "I've been...in the water
my whole life," says Hudnall. "The first time I was on a surfboard I was one
and a half. My dad was holding me on a surfboard."
Though she became comfortable with water at an early age, Hudnall didn't
actually surf until she turned 13. Her desire to learn the sport took on a
new meaning. "It was just to impress a boy -- that's the truth of it! And
it worked, and we stayed together for a long time."
The boy didn't stick, but her love of surfing did. In retrospect, Hudnall
doesn't regret a thing. "I got hooked, and it's one of the healthiest things
that I could ever decide to do with my life....If you're by the ocean, it's
usually a pretty nice place."
Hudnall has lived in various coastal settings in California. Currently,
she lives in a tiny town on Vancouver Island. Ten minutes from her home, she
surfs an incredible stretch of water just west of a sandy strip called Long
Beach.
From April to October, Hudnall runs a school called Surf Sister. "We have
10 long boards that we use with pretty flowers on them...and 10 girl wetsuits.
So the idea is to teach women in a really fun, supportive environment. And
we also do lessons for guys -- we're not excluding men -- but just not in
the weekend group format," she explains.
Bruce Gabrielson agrees that surfing is hard to resist. "The sport has
it all -- excitement in and out of the water, girls all over the place, adoration
from the crowds, peer recognition, prestige [and] money if you're one of the
best. Probably the biggest thing about surfing is its individualism. You can
personally go as far as you want and can afford."
In 1968, Gabrielson was the Santa's helper of the surfboard-shaping scene.
He was an accomplished surfer at the time, having just joined the Soul Surfboard
Team. But he needed a board to surf on. His solution? To spend some time with
legendary shaper Dale "The Hawk" Velzy.
Gabrielson remembers the days. "I used to hang around his shaping stall,
having him make me boards until he finally got tired of me and taught me to
shape. Then, when he retired,...he gave me all his equipment and templates.
This got me into the business. I owe Dale a lot for this." Gabrielson continued
to shape until 1978.
With an income on the side that kept him in the industry, Gabrielson became
a top competitive surfer through the late '60s and the '70s. He came painfully
close to winning the U.S. surfing championships. "I caught my thumb in my
jersey while taking off on the cleanup set wave during the finals....It caused
me to fall back on my board and ruined the wave for me. I was on a roll that
day and this was likely the main reason I only took third."
Decades later, Gabrielson still keeps his hands in the industry.
He coaches part time and judges the occasional contest for a state high school
team.
"My life was strongly affected by the easygoing attitude surfers often
display. Even now, I'll sometimes kick back and just let things go on around
me. It also affected who I married -- a good beach girl from Huntington Beach
-- and where I live, across the street from the water," says Gabrielson.
"I can still talk the talk with the surfing locals, even if I can't still
walk the walk. I also enjoy the status I have among the surfing community
here. Even though I've achieved fame in my profession and in other pursuits,
being one of the earlier day surfing legends means a lot to me personally.
It's one of the very few things I'm still willing to lend my personal time
and support to simply for the pleasure of doing it."