#4 ~ Kevin Speaks

I surf all the time and I see a much broader diversity of surfers in the water than are represented by popular media. Who are these anonymous surfers? Lately, I’ve been making an effort to meet many more people in the water. It’s surprisingly satisfying to paddle over and say, “How’s it goin’?” to the stranger sitting on the next peak. The ocean instantly becomes much smaller…and so does the world!

Here is an interview with one such ‘stranger’. His name is Kevin and he is married to Bethany. They have two kids: Zoe and Gordon.


What’s your job?

I work in the biotech industry in the regulatory department. That’s probably as far as I should go with that. I could say more but I’d put you to sleep.

That’s alright.

I do a lot of reading of federal regulations as it pertains to bio-tech pharmaceutical products.

Is that your background?

No, actually, I have an IT background but I actually went to school for interior design. It’s kinda like a progression. It started in art doing interior design, then I started doing graphics, from graphics it went to web design, to technical support, to technical support for a biotech company, to regulatory.

How long have you been surfing?

I’ve been surfing for about 5 years but I’ve owned a surfboard for at least twice as long. So, I bought my first surfboard when I was a senior in high school, but I didn’t start surfing until about 5 or 6 years ago.

Why the big gap?

I grew up on the east coast in Maryland and I used to spend the summers vacationing as a kid down in the outer banks of North Carolina. As a kid at 12 or 13 years old I used to go bodysurfing in the ocean on the east coast and then I got a boogie board and started boogie boarding. By the time I was a senior in high school I had a friend who had a surfboard. I’d always had an interest in surfing but never did. I had a friend who had a surfboard and he offered to sell it to me for a $100 bucks and I was like ‘sure, why not?”. I knew it was something I knew I wanted to get into….so I bought it!

One of the tough things about living where I lived was that I was 5 hours from any major body of water so in the summers I would take my surfboard to Cape Hatteras, the outer banks of North Carolina. I would only be there for a week so I never really had the consistency to develop and learn. It was kinda like…”let me just take the board”…it’s a 6’2” WRV…”let me just take it in the water and see what happens!”. That would be 1 or 2 weeks out of the summer and then it wouldn’t happen again for another year.

About 10 years ago I moved to san Francisco and lived literally within a 2 minute drive to the ocean. I was like “alright it’s either now or never!” so I just bought a used longboard off craigslist and started going out 3 or 4 times a week. That was about 5 to 6 years ago.

So, what size board are you riding now?

Right now I ride an 8’0”. I have 3 boards. I still have the 6’2” that I bought when I was a senior in high school. I have a 9’0” that I bought off craiglist. That’s really the board I consider my first board because that’s the board I caught my first wave on. And I just recently graduated to an 8’0”. I bought a Linden… a Catalina funboard. That one is my first brand new board.

So where is your local spot?

My local spot is by default Linda Mar…Taco Bell Beach. But this past year a lot of opportunities have opened up for me to surf up and down the coast of northern California. I went down to Wydell(beach), Steamer’s Lane in Santa Cruz….this is all within the past few months. Ocean Beach, because next to Taco Bell Beach OB would be my 2nd to home spot because of proximity. And Half Moon Bay. I think next on my list is Maverick’s…..not in February or March though! (laughter) Normal surf at Maverick’s you can go out there and catch 3 to 5 footers…maybe even a 6 footer here or there. But not the Maverick’s that pulls in people from all over the globe!

What keeps you surfing?

Although I’ve really only considered myself surfing for 5, 6 years I feel like surfing has really been in my blood since I was in high school. It all started with getting into skate culture…riding skateboards and going to the beach, the outer banks of North Carolina. Something about being there and always wanting to get into the water and just totally experience the wave whether it be bodysurfing or on a boogie board. I really feel deep in my soul that surfing has been in my blood since high school.

Everything has come to fruition just since I’ve lived in California for the past 12 years…..having access to the water right there.

Today the main thing that pulls me in the water is that at the end of my day when I’m done working and I suit up & I paddle out the second I’m in the water everything else just goes away….it’s just complete disconnect. Regardless of how great your day was or how bad your day was, as soon as I hit the water everything disconnects.

It’s one of those things that are hard to articulate. You really have to go out into the water to feel that….to know what that’s like. For some people it might be other things but for me surfing is just my way of just disconnecting…and just releasing.

You said you skateboarded a lot, too. Do you still skate? How much were you into skating?

I did skateboard when I was younger, a lot. We used to have in our neighborhood this ramp that they built…about 20 kids. That was back before they secured constructions sites. A bunch of kids at nighttime would go and snag all this plywood and 2x4’s. And there was a creek that they would soak the plywood in. They would let it soak for days. And they just started building this ramp. They would take the wet plywood and start bending it and nailing it down and they built this half-pipe.

We would go down there and skate during the summers. I would do the ramp but I would never do these in-the-air acrobats and stuff. It’s just part of the board culture; if you can’t surf it’s the next best thing.

I hadn’t skateboarded in a while….in a long time; I’d say over 15 years. And recently I turned 35; my birthday was last week.

Heyyy, Happy Birthday!!

Right on, now forget it…no. (laughter). For my birthday I told my wife “you know I think I’m gonna go buy a skateboard”.

I have a son who is gonna be 3 in a few weeks. And part of the reason I bought a skateboard is because whenever we drive by the skate park he totally lights up! We go in the skate park; he likes to sit on the outside and watch all the other skaters do aerials and stuff. And the other part is that I think that once that gets into you…that desire…I don’t think it ever goes away.

For me it was symbolic. 35 was a big leap for me. I know a lot of people I talk to are like, “Dude, you’re still young. You’re still a kid!” But for me it’s like “nahh!”, because I walk around and kids younger than me are looking at me like “look at that old guy!” So part of buying a skateboard was a way of me clinging on to that youth.



Can you talk about your best session? Do you have a favorite session that stands out in your mind?

That’s a hard one. Some of my better sessions have definitely been within the last year. Like I mentioned before I just recently bought my first brand new surfboard which was an 8’0” funboard. And some of the better sessions I’ve had have been since I’ve had this board. It’s a lot easier to maneuver and turn with the wave. There are a couple specific times I remember catching what seemed to me like 100 ft. waves, which I’m sure in reality were like 3’ waves. Overall I’d say seasonally the past year has been a time where I’ve had better sessions.

Oh wait…forgot one….Kauai, last summer. That was by far the best surfing experience I’ve ever had in my entire life. We went to Kauai for family vacation, the 4 of us. We stayed at Poipu Beach. We have a friend whose sister lives in Kauai and she’s a surfer and so I hooked up with her and she let me borrow one of her husband’s boards which was a 9’0”. Keep in mind that my entire experience surfing had been in northern California where a wetsuit is not an option; it’s required. And then I go down to Poipu Beach in Kauai…..now I know where the term “surf naked” came from! You get in the water and it’s bath warm. You look 8 feet below you and you can see all the rocks and stuff, which is a little disconcerting, but the waves and the breaks were so clean and so consistent that I definitely, by far, have had my best surf experience. And that will always, until I catch the ‘killer wave’, be my best surf experience. Because of where I was, the consistency of the wave, it wasn’t really that crowded…it was just awesome!

Has surfing taught you anything?

Surfing has taught me a lot. One of the things growing up that I think every kid deals with is the pressure of conforming to what other people think you should be and conforming to what other people think you should do. The second you do something that’s outside what they’re used to seeing I don’t think they know how to process that.

When I think of what has surfing taught me I think of don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t do something whether it be because of your age, whether it be because of your color, whether it be because of your disability, whatever it is. Surfing to me, I have such an intimate joy with it that I will not allow anybody to tell me that I can’t, regardless of how old I am or what I look like or what people expect me to be or think that I should be.

Have you had any drama surfing?


Yeah, of course. Surfing’s a funny culture. Certain spots, and I kinda understand it…the one thing that is pretty common in a lot of places is that certain spots can be very territorial. One of the things that I’ve learned from my earlier days of surfing is to respect that, because these are local people and these are their stomping grounds. You have to, one, understand and know what your skill level is. And, two, with that respect those areas.

Every once in a while you run into some drama but you have to learn to blow it off and not allow that experience to rob the joy of what you’re in the water for.

Any other thoughts we didn’t get to?

I’ll tell you my coming of age surfing story. Like I mentioned I got my first surfboard right around my senior year; I was just graduating. I had taken it in the water maybe once or twice. I grew up in a suburban area of mostly white families; there were some black families here or there and that was a lot of my school experience: elementary, junior high & high school. When it went to college I went to Howard(University) which is one of the oldest black institutions in the U.S.

I remember I took this speech communications class. The assignment we were given was to give a speech on something about ourselves that people don’t know or would never guess. I gave a speech on a friend of mine that was 6’2” whose name was Bonk, because that was the name of the surfboard.

I remember I commuted from Silver Springs into D.C. which was like an hour and forty-five minute commute everyday, one way. So the day came I had to give my speech. I wrapped up my surfboard; I had my (surfboard)sock on it. I took this surfboard with me on the bus, on the subway, walked the 5 blocks from the subway to campus and to class. I got a wide range of reactions from the time I left the house to the time I got to school. You can only imagine people were like “we’re like 5 hours from the nearest body of water; what is this guy doing on the bus with a surfboard?”

I was very self conscious about it….especially once I got to campus. And this goes back to what I was saying one of the things it taught me is never let anybody tell you that you can’t do something regardless of whatever the condition is. I had people say things to the effect of ‘you’re a fool!” to “That’s really cool!” And that comment, when they looked at me and said, “That’s really cool!” I knew exactly what they were saying. Part of it was ‘hey, that’s really cool that you surf.” But for who I was and where I was that comment showed me that there’s such a wide range of personalities out there…a wide range of interests. Sometimes we’re bound by what people expect of us and we don’t allow ourselves to pursue those things that are close to us. Whether it be “I’m black and I surf” but that’s not necessarily what you always think of as being synonymous.

Even after class I had some people ask all sorts of questions: where do you surf? How long have you surfed?….just this interest level. And then other people seeing that realizing “maybe if this is something I might be interested in, maybe it is cool that I go and try this out and see if it’s something I can totally dig on”.

That experience for me was liberating. Not to make the focal point of me being black and me being a surfer, but like you eloquently put it on the blog, this is just the circumstances of the world that we live in. So for me that experience was a liberation to be able to go to school and be like ‘yeah, this is what I do!” For me to publicly say that this is something that I’m very passionate about required some vulnerability. So that story is definitely a defining point in terms of my pursuit or passion of growing as a surfer.

Wow, thank you.

#3 ~ [Flashback] Nias Island: Alifa I

Time: April/May 1997
Place: Nias Island, Indonesia
Circumstances: My friend DB and I were 7-months into our 18-month endless summer surf trip around the globe. We’re spending 2-months on this remote island off of Sumatra that is home to Lagundri Bay, an internationally famous right reef break. We were staying right on the bay in a lossman. Ours was a studio-style thatch bungalow on stilts with a big porch and bathroom off the back. Inside the room were two twin beds draped with mosquito nets and a nightstand. Our lossman was 50 yards off the water and cost $0.25 per night.

It was owned by a beautiful family: Grandma, Mom, Dad, 3 Sons and 2 Daughters. Grandma was the masseur. Mom was the master chef. Dad was mr. Fix-it. The eldest son, Daniel, was the local surf guru and spoke the most English. When the younger kids were not in school they were always having fun: climbing papaya trees, messing with the chickens or laughing at my big feet when we played hackey sack.

During the earthquakes & subsequent tsunamis near Sumatra in December 2004 and March 2005 Nias sustained devastating loss. My heart goes out to all of the amazing, lovely, generous people I met and their families. I’m thankful to surfing for directing my curiosity to visit such far away lands and broaden my human awareness.

The following excerpt is from a journal I kept on the island:



This lived in our bathroom! Our bathroom was a 4’x 15’ tile-floored room that sat three steps down off the back of our lossman. It was equipped with table, toilet, spicket & bucket. The bucket was huge and filled with water that we would scoop out to flush the toilet. We were fortunate to have our own running water and toilet connected to our in the lossman!

Every night I have to trek to the bathroom at least a couple times. A couple days into our stay here I noticed a long speedy thing going across the floor. I’m generally fond of bugs but this one had a particularly unnerving look about it & moved way too fast. Still, I yelled to DB and we admired it.

As I had to use the bathroom and I didn’t want it to crawl on me I’d always take the flashlight with me The thing didn’t seem too interested in me. It just seemed to zoom around the floor all night….only at night!

After a couple weeks I noticed it had gotten bigger. I have no idea what it ate in there but it was bigger. When I mentioned this to DB he thought it absurd that I could notice an increase in size in that short time. I knew it was bigger but still thought…”huh, maybe he’s right.”

By this point we had been referring to the creature rather amiably as the “The Pit Monster”.

Well, that night I found myself on the usual midnight run….only this time I had some solid business to tend. Sitting down wasn’t as easy with a flashlight because when I’d look one way the other way would be in total blackness. I quickly found the Monster cruising along the nearby wall to my left & it indeed didn’t look that big. I watched it cruise in front of me seemingly investigating my feet which I promptly lifted! As it went under the table I lost sight of it but saw some movement on top of the table. A quick flashlight adjustment revealed the secret to the growth…….there was another one……a BIGGER one!

Now I had to track both of these Monsters with my one beam of light. Luckily, the tabletop Monster didn’t seem interested in coming to the floor. I was following the smaller dude around the floor & periodically(quite often!) checking the table, too. I watched as it passed my feet again disappearing behind the bucket. The next thing to happen was a Stephen King creation. As I kept the light on the bucket to make sure there would be no sneak attacks I saw something straight out of a nightmare.

Slowly making its way from behind the bucket was a Pit Monster over twice as big as the Bigger Monster! I was in awe! 3 of them……the 3rd one being more of a snake with legs than a bug! …..and me with a beam of light and my pants down!

I remained calm because one was still on the table & the Biggest Monster was a slow mover. I watched them for a while & then returned to bed having to bite my tongue to keep from waking DB with the news!


For the next few days I did my best to hold-it during the night but still found myself on full alert peeing with 3 Monsters. The Biggest one disappeared after 2 days so I was left to deal with the two Little ones. I saw them more like caterpillars now after having seen the potential. Most of the fear was now directed towards the Big one. Nevertheless I still did not want them to crawl on me but was much less cautious.

After a week I noticed my flashlight beam fading so in the interest of battery conservation I decided it okay to turn off the light once successfully reaching the toilet. Well, on my second night of this heroic method I found myself having a seat once again. Once situated & comfortable I turned off the light. That’s when it happened……. Aaaaghhh!

Something had bitten or stung my ankle. I swatted & jumped up on the toilet in one move. By the time I turned on the light all I saw was a cricket hopping across the floor. I tried momentarily to convince myself that my ankle bracelet had caught my hairs but the pain was far too intense.

The pain came not from a single point but an area the size of an egg was on fire. I saw one drop of blood in the middle and it all started to swell. My rubbing was as soothing as throwing a cup of water on a forest fire.

I scrambled to bed and shakily dowsed the area with peroxide. Inside the darkness of my mosquito net I fantasized myself to sleep with thoughts of the awful things that could happen from the bite of some tropical jungle bug. [a few weeks later I would get Malaria from such a bug….but that’s another story!]


The morning brought good and bad discoveries. The good news was that I had moderate swelling and intense pain which lasted until the following day. The bad news was that we solved the mystery of why we only saw the Pit Monster at night. To our dismay we found the Smallest Monster curled up under the seat of the toilet….not good!

2 days after the attack I was drawing the picture above when our local friend Daniel cruised up. I asked about the creature. His response, “Yeah, I know this, Alifa. Very Dangerous. You see one? Kill it! If it bite you, 2 days no walking! Kill it! But when you try kill it, make sure it die. If not die it will come back to get you. Kill it!” Not exactly the response I was hoping for. He also said the smaller ones weren’t as bad.

Well, that did explain my day of pain. And if my swat pissed it off that also explains the sudden interest in the toilet…..REVENGE!!!


Coming soon: The Hunt!

#2 ~ Charge it!

Almost one week ago a great leader in the community died unexpectedly. His name is Carlos Aceituno and his positive influence spread thick throughout the bay area and well beyond. I studied Brazilian drumming and Capoeira under him a handful of times. From my view he was one of those people with infinite energy and enthusiasm. Even when he was running you into the ground with warm-up exercises he still looked as though he were on a leisurely stroll through the dunes…..and this is why his death has had such an impact on me. You never know when your days in this life will come to an end.

There have been many days I have gone down to the beach to check it before deciding whether or not to surf. I would look out over the ocean and judge whether or not the conditions were worthy of me paddling out. Recently I’ve been working on lowering my criteria for entry. As long as I have the time, it’s not absolutely flat [rare at OB]& it’s not too big [not so rare at OB] I find myself suiting up for a session. The new standard I’ve been working towards is to see one rideable wave. Sometimes I don’t even see a good one and I’ll paddle anyway…..and sometimes I still don’t paddle out. Of course my wife would disagree. She sees me check the online report before leaving the house and says “I don’t know why you bother checking it; you go out anyway."

It’s actually fun surfing on the days when there is “no surf”. There’s never a crowd factor to maneuver. In fact, there’s a slight joy in knowing that I might be the only person to have surfed that stretch of beach that day. The rawness of OB makes it especially exhilarating when there is any size to it. Enduring the treadmill of whitewater is an often humbling, great physical and mental exercise.

When the surf is simply blown-out & basically junky the fun comes in other ways. The game becomes trying to find that one good one. The ocean becomes a living puzzle of closeouts, backwash, dredgers, double-up’s & all-around whitewater chaos. Successfully navigating a wave out of all that is definitely enough to bring a smile to my face. It’s amazing how the criteria for ‘good one’ drops down in those conditions. It’s like Eddie Murphy’s skit on giving a starving man a cracker…..it must be a Ritz!

And if I’m unable to unlock the puzzle that day Mother Ocean has other treats. It’s a common experience for me to be floating alone and then be surprised by a curious sea lion popping up 10 feet away or a passing pod of dolphins which is always enough to awaken my spirit. Our fellow pelicans are always game to show the true mastery of riding the waves. Just the other day I was heading out on a ‘not-so-good’ day when I looked down to see a posse of lime sized sand~crabs scurrying out with the receding sea.

The greatest gift, however, comes from simply being in the ocean. I live right in the heart of San Francisco, which is a luxury in one respect, but it also means being surrounded by concrete, cars and pollution. To escape the unforgiving, lifeless asphalt for the all-enveloping, dynamic, living ocean is enough to make a good session!

Surfing is about a lot more than just ‘riding the waves’. Our lives are so precious. Even with all the drama that is an inevitable part of living we are fortunate souls to be alive at this time in history. And to share in something so magical as Surfing we are indeed lucky beings! I am going to savor it in every way as much as I can!!!

The cool thing is that this idea can be easily extended to everything I do in life......as can most of surfing lessons. Aaahh, yet another reason to paddle out!

You’re invited to pick up one handful of trash after you surf.

#1 ~ Greetings World!

What’s up, World? Let me just start by saying that it is a trip writing something that could be read by potentially anyone, anywhere in the world. Besides being a surfer I’m also an actor and one of the primary questions we ask ourselves when doing a monologue is “who am I talking to?” The answer to this question greatly determines how to proceed. For example, say you were talking about your last surf trip. How you told the story to your best friend would greatly differ from how you told it to your 5-year old Niece. I’m still not sure how to address ‘the world’ but I’m going to move ahead anyway. It’s like paddling out at Spot X for the first time…..not quite sure what’s out there but you just keep on paddling….
Since the acting reference bubbled up I’ll just continue down that path. Another vital question is: who am I? That’s of obvious importance when an actor is attempting to portray the life of some character. Here it is important because the world wide web is intense! There are so many different people plugged into this thing that I could be ANYBODY. To clarify things a bit I’ll give you a brief lowdown on me. Ideally, more will be revealed through the continuing entries….
Hmmm, I am a Surfer.
I am a Black Surfer. It has to be qualified because, ,good or bad, that’s just the way things are on this planet.
I am a Husband, Father, Son & Brother.
I am a Traveler.
I am an Observer.
I am an Actor…..
……which brings me to the next key question: What are the circumstances? I grew up as a competitive Bodyboarder in Carlsbad, California back in the mid 80’s. Then strayed from the ocean in college when volleyball became my thing except for annual surf trips to Baja or Nexpa. As soon as I graduated I was back in the water primarily still Bodyboarding but leaning towards Surfing. Two years in the heart of New Jersey had me beached again. And then I packed up with a Friend and decided to learn to surf on the road. So with surfboards and backpacks we traveled the world for 18-months. My beginnings as a stand-up Surfer were: South Africa, Mauritius, Indonesia, Australia & New Zealand….with a few other non-surfing countries in between. Coming back to the U.S. I settled in San Francisco where Ocean Beach became my home break. Then it was up to Seattle for a few years where I made the occasional 2 hour & 14 minute surf trip out to Westport when grad school would allow…..plus, the honeymoon/surf trip/baby conception to Costa Rica and Panama. And now I’m happy to be back at good ol’ Ocean Beach! (read about it in the Surfer’s Path magazine; issue #55)

In my travels I’ve encountered Black surfers all over the globe yet I see little mention of us in the media. We’re rarely seen in surf magazines….and even less in videos. I have had some success searching on the web. I was especially stoked to come across the writings on Nick Galbadon,…a Black surfer from the 40’s! I wish I knew about him as a kid. Also, there is the Black Surfing Association & Quashi surfboards which are doing tons of great stuff…someday I hope to surf with that crew. And I found Rahim Walker who is documenting an epic surf adventure….and ‘surfsister’ who is documenting her own adventures in SoCal. These are just a few of the people I was happy to discover but unfortunately I didn’t find too many more. Given those circumstances I simply wish to add one more voice to the community. Surfing has given me so much that it’s an honor and pleasure to share it.

A broad diversity of surfers are enjoying the ocean these days! It seems almost weekly I’ll see or meet another Black surfer in the Bay area. One of the most diverse places I’ve surfed is a spot a few miles south of OB called Linda Mar. EVERYBODY (literally) surfs there. It’s always a treat to be surrounded by the myriad shades and sexes of our species! As we move into this new century I think the more people who take up surfing the better off the planet will be [excluding the crowd factor].

Surfing has a lot to teach us…….