Surfer Stacey Mac - Costa Rica

Starting at 43 in Boston (!!!), Surfer Stacey Mac rocketed into a pro career as a SUP surfer, defining diehard as she chased hurricanes across state lines to hone her skills. A natural adrenaline junkie, Stacey funneled her focus into her newfound passion, creating a career as a competitor, judge and instructor and moving full time to Costa Rica. But there was a shadow side to her success. In this episode, Stacey shares for the first time how bipolar disorder contributed to that hyperfocus and relentless energy level. And now, choosing to manage her condition with less volatility, she’s learning to deal with the middles, and the meh’s. We also dig into that verboten subject—menopause—and the specific challenges we face as surfers, like weight gain and lack of motivation, along with the gifts of I-don’t-give-a-fuck, and no more periods! Stacey also shares real-world advice about surfing as a bigger woman, her own struggles, and her stoke. Learn more about Stacey on Facebook and Instagram at @surferstaceymac.

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Transcript

[00:19] Sheila: Welcome to the Dropping Into Power podcast, where we'll be hearing stories about the transformational power of surfing from women surfers of all ages, all levels, and all over. We'll hear about courage, commitment, struggles, frustration, epiphany, and, of course, life transformations, large and small. I'm your host, Sheila Gallion, and I am stoked to share these conversations with these amazing women full of so much passion with all of you aloha. And thank you so much for joining us on the Dropping Into Power podcast. I'm so excited today to be talking to surfer Stacy Mac. Stacey, I don't even know your last name. You're just surfer. Stacey mac.

[01:07] Stacey: M-A-C. Yeah.

[01:08] Sheila: And I first met Stacey when she reached out to me after I interviewed the curvy surfer girl, Elizabeth Sneed, and she said, hey, I'm the curvy surfer girl of stand up, and she has a great story. So first and foremost, Stacey started surfing. Was it 42 or 43? I was seeing two different pieces.

[01:27] Stacey: Yeah, I think 42. I stepped on a stand up paddleboard. Got it. Yeah. By 43, I was on the stand up paddle board in the wave.

[01:39] Sheila: Okay. So nonetheless, 42 gets the call, starts on the stand at paddlebard, and rockets into a completely new life. Like, all of us are transformed by surfing, but Stacey's is pretty extreme. So to start with, she became pro really fast, and even to the point where they created a category for her they didn't even have one in the Eastern Conference and created a category for her where she took first in open men's and women's SUP. She has multiple first place wins and championships. Over the years, she competed in New England. Throughout the east and Central America, she's been an ambassador for brands and sponsorships of some really beautiful companies. And then she became a certified SUP instructor to basically spread the stoke. And all of this comes on the heels, which we'll talk a little bit about, of her already well cultivated, adrenaline junkie self, but nonetheless, this incredible, storing explosion into a completely different world, the competitive world. You're the first person I've talked to that entered as a competitive athlete in your forties as a mom. We'll talk about that in a minute. And now you live pretty much full time in Costa Rica, is that right?

[02:58] Stacey: Yes, correct. I'm in Costa Rica full time.

[03:01] Sheila: And do you teach both in Costa Rica and in San Diego sometimes, too?

[03:06] Stacey: You know, I've been asked, like, people know me in the industry. So I was asked to work up in was actually La in Los Angeles area, and I was in Marina del Rey, Venice, that area.

[03:20] Sheila: Well, Stacey's whole story, your whole story is just about I'm not supposed to be able to do this. This isn't supposed to be happening. And it happens, and it happens through the passion, through the love, through will. And so I want to start with what we were talking about just before, because one of my questions for you was what did your kids think when you got into the ocean? So tell me how old your kids were and what they said to you when you started.

[03:47] Stacey: Wow. I would say, like mid teens or so. And I was so excited to have two boys because I was an athlete my whole life, and I couldn't wait to coach them, teach them. I was the first girl on the baseball team in my town ever in the was like, yeah, I'm having boys. But my boys were so embarrassed when I used to put the I'm in Boston, not many people have surfboards up on top of their car. And I would be stand up, pedal surf or surfboards up on top of my car, picking them up from school. They're like, mom, please don't bring the boards on the car when you pick us up. And then all the friends would say, oh, your mom's the coolest mom. But they had no idea they could care less.

[04:31] Sheila: That's so funny. Yeah, you have to deal with teen peer pressure even as you pursue your own dream. And then they said they told you you didn't belong in the water or.

[04:40] Stacey: Just we as a species. Yeah, they taught me a lot about sharks, but they said, mom, did you know bull sharks can go in fresh water and salt water and they can go in little amount of water? He's like, Basically, tell me, mom, we don't belong in the ocean. I said, I'm just visiting. Don't worry, I'm just visiting.

[05:00] Sheila: It's so funny. I love that the TNS are the ones telling them instead of you telling them, don't drive faster, mom, stay away.

[05:07] Stacey: From the shark, please. Exactly.

[05:10] Sheila: It's so cute. So I don't know anyone else that started surfing. I'm sure there are not a ton of surfers on the Boston scene, so I really wanted you to paint the picture of what that scene is like and what it's like surfing around that area.

[05:24] Stacey: Wow, I love that question. You have to be diehard. I mean, that's how we get to where we are. Because if you want to do it no, you're not just going out weekend warrior. If you want to surf in New England, you have to chase storms, hurricanes, to get good waves in the summer. When I used to go to the beach and I would look at the ocean in the summer, we don't get waves, so it's flat as a lake. And I would never thought there was surfing in New England. I love surfing, but my dad said to me you know the stories. My dad said to me, Why aren't you surfing, Stacey? I was 42 years old. Why are you surfing? And I was like, dad, this is surfing in Boston. He's like, yes, there is. I used to surf when I was a kid. It's because you have to go in the fall or you have to wear a wetsuit or you have to chase the waves up and down the coast. I mean, we were diehard. It was nonstop. Okay, let's get up 04:00 A.m. And let's take a drive up and down the coast. Checking where the best ways were. I learned how to read surf reports really well after a while.

[06:31] Sheila: So do you read the full buoy reports, weather reports? Not just relying on surf line or anything? Okay, so what's it look like when you are in the first? What would your day look like when it was time to catch some waves?

[06:46] Stacey: So what we would do, you obviously have to have everything ready to go and we would all meet up and kind of carpool it. Because if it was a salt swell, it might be better in Rhode Island versus if it was coming from the north, north, east, we would go up to Maine. So really every single break is different. The winds were different, so we might even head down to Rhode Island on a day. And it was like an all day thing sometimes or it was a couple of hours trying to find the right break.

[07:20] Sheila: You're crossing states, first of all, very foreign to people in the west who are like you're going into three different states.

[07:27] Stacey: Well, you know how that might be too. It's tough because the New England area is not very territorial. But if you cross borders and lines, then it might become a little territorial. Like with it the out of state plates and be like, what are you doing here? Because you know California, and anybody listening to this who is a surfer might know California is this certain areas where there's locals that are local to that break. And where we were in Boston, we had the option to go from Maine up down to Rhode Island. I mean, that's a long stretch. We would drive 2 hours sometimes to get to a break. So right in Boston City we didn't have it, but we had it on the south shore, the north shore, and then spread it out against the touching state. New Hampshire had some good ways, too. And this is one little section of New Hampshire that touches the ocean. So yeah, then some of the areas, and I won't say who, but they didn't like the Massachusetts plates coming in. That's how it was sometimes.

[08:36] Sheila: And so what kind of surf? How big? Small, I'm sure like anywhere it changes the conditions. But what were the most common conditions and what were like the ones you were hungry for?

[08:48] Stacey: I love that question because I look back at what are my favorite waves back in my whole twelve years of surfing, 1014 years of surfing. Now, funny thing is you're asking a question about what one person's favorite wave is, but another person might be different. I used to say to people like, oh, I was on this big wave, eight foot wave, ten foot wave. And they're like, oh, that's not big, right? That will always be big to me. But I did I gauged what my favorite wave is in a hurricane in the Northeast. And I like the Northeast hurricanes because there was one swell coming in which didn't interact with any other swells. Not all the time, but a lot of time. It was one clean swell coming in. And my favorite back in the day was about six or so feet, because this is more customary. We didn't have a lot more than the six foot wave. So I was like, this is my favorite six foot wave, about 380 in the velocity. And we were not fortunate to have a lot of seconds between the waves, so we might have up to 14, and I'm saying that's rare. So a twelve second between the sets. And then now my wave selection now down in Puerto Rico, obviously is different than that. I like 18 seconds between the wave or 16 there. That's about what it was. So we would get nice, good swells coming in. And my favorite month is October, and I happen to be going up there soon. So my friends up there like, bring your wetsuit. And being in Costa Rica, we don't wear wetsuits. So like when I get up there, I'm like, I'm going to be back in Costa Rica in a week. Like, I don't even feel like putting on my wetsuit, which is one of the getting lazy. Hello.

[10:37] Sheila: I know, I hear you. I'm so lazy living Hawaii, but that's so interesting and it just sounds so exotic to be casing hurricanes. I love the knowledge base you have of the interval. I love to nerd out on that stuff. In fact, I just met somebody the other day that told me about thinking it's called surf weather. I have to ask him again what it was, but it's like the total nerd site so it doesn't have everything all drawn out. I'll ask him. I'll send it to you. I was wondering what size you use to assess.

[11:13] Stacey: I'd be curious what they use because I teach it and I actually teach it for surf camps. It's called my classes. How to read surf reports. And the one I love is Surf Forecast.com and how I happened upon it as I was a snowboarder. So they had snow forecast. And then when I started surfing, I happened upon it. And I love it. Like you said, it's not like fancy smashy, like you go on to an app, but it's great knowledge, in depth knowledge.

[11:48] Sheila: I think that might have been it. That might have been what he was talking about.

[11:51] Stacey: Wow. If he was because I haven't met anybody else that uses it, but I teach it in my classes and when I do, they love it because you can transfer any of the knowledge you learn in it over to magic seaweed or surfline. And I like the advanced categories in it. It's like advanced forecast. And then you can find, like, local breaks to go to. If that one's not firing, that's cool.

[12:14] Sheila: Wow. Great tip. Hot tip for anybody listening. I highly encourage people. If you're just starting out, whatever, you've been surfing a long time, studying that, studying how waves work and studying the intervals and the directions and all of that. It also really connects you to your place, your sense of place. So you can really I've only just started to really dial in here. I've been so spoiled because also I just surf whatever windows I have, so it doesn't matter. It's like, okay, I have this much time, whatever's there. But when I first started surfing in Humboldt County, it was before surfline, really. And so we would do buoy weather.com, and it's no charge then, but you had to read the buoys and you had to read the directions. Otherwise you would drive an hour and hike down a cliff, and it could be 20ft or there be nothing or the wrong side. Yeah. The scary ride in Costa Rica has huge tidal shift. Is it 10ft?

[13:08] Stacey: Is the swing the minimum? Weird about that right here.

[13:11] Sheila: I mean, that is something. So we don't have that in Hawaii. That there's other issues, but in Humboldt it's 8ft. So here it's about two and a half feet. We only have a swing of even.

[13:21] Stacey: Wow.

[13:21] Sheila: On the biggest swings are two and a half. A lot of times it's only a foot or a foot and a half. But remember, it's all exposed reef on the island of Hawaii. Like, it's just rock virgin low tide is a very big deal, that foot of water. But what happens when you have a dropping tide and a rising swell, as anyone who's ever been in that understands, and suddenly the wave doubles in size.

[13:49] Stacey: And you're like, and there's no water on the bottom, and there's no way.

[13:53] Sheila: The whole thing stuck out, and you're like and it looks so different, so different because literally you just lost 8ft of water.

[14:00] Stacey: Wow.

[14:01] Sheila: Crazy. Anyway, that's super cool. I could obviously geek out on that for a long time, but I really do. I mean, I remember being so blown away when I learned that, like, a two foot wave at 18 seconds with a certain kind of bottom can be.

[14:17] Stacey: 15Ft with the wind, too.

[14:22] Sheila: There's a lot to learn in that. All right, that was fun. We talked a little bit, kind of going back to the curvy surfer girl part, and I remember you saying we kind of just touched on it. And I want to come back to this at the very end when you talk about why you're actually getting focused on longboarding now, because that was very interesting part of your story, but was it easier for you to SUP than longboard? Is that one reason that you got involved there feeling like it was just hard to get up or that your body didn't fit.

[15:01] Stacey: It's so wild because no matter what I want to do in life, I end up doing it. So what happened is I went up to when my dad said, at 42, why aren't you surfing, Stacy? What are you doing snowboarding? Paying all that money to go up snowboarding? I said to myself, yeah, why am I not? So I went up to New Hampshire and I went and tried longboard surfing for the first time. Like I said, at 42. And when I tried it, I am bigger. I am over £200. So to pop up and I've always been for the longest time, even when I was younger, in high school, I was like 180 something, so I played sports. I was always used to carrying that weight. I had a lot of muscle, so I was able to pop up, but not quite fast. And I would get knocked off really quick. And I'm like, I'm going to master this. But when I saw somebody when I returned to Boston, I saw somebody in the ocean on a stand up paddle board. And I was like, oh, what are they doing standing up on a surfboard? And I Googled it and found out it would stand up pedal boarding, which is like, what? At that time, maybe I saw it first. So I said to myself, what is that? And when I Googled it, it said, you can surf on them. So I didn't really correlate really, the fact of, oh, I didn't say to myself, oh, just try that. They don't have to pop up. But when I tried it, then I realized, oh, I can do this, you know. And I didn't go back to the lawn boarding. I just went full force with the stand up paddle boarding, surfing, stand up paddle surfing. And I think now I kind of regret not incorporating both of them at the same time because I ended up teaching longboard surfing right away. I was with longboard surfers the whole time. I mean, that's shortboards, longboarders. I used to get in the line up with everybody, so I knew how to take a wave, I knew how to teach it. I got east certified, and then I got certified to judge all levels. So I regret not doing it now. I don't regret it, but now I'm like, starting to longboard surf, which is posing a challenge for me. And back in the day, I loved a challenge. I think that's where I am in my life. I'm like, do I want a challenge? But I really do want to do all like a water woman wants to do all different things. That's what I'm working on now, which is proving difficult as an overweight woman trying to longboard surf. There are key things that you need to do. I mean, you can't get on the same size longboard as another person. Like an eight foot board to me is like riding a short board. I can think that. So I'm on a nine foot now and I'm playing with different sizes and stuff like that.

[17:56] Sheila: How tall are you? Can I ask people on every board? It's actually really fascinating to me, and especially I see lifelong surfers who definitely are not spring chickens and they're not skinny minis and they're pumping a little shortboard because they just finesse at that point. But I think it is harder when we learn as adults like that finesse. We kind of miss that 40 years building up to having that finesse.

[18:26] Stacey: Yes.

[18:27] Sheila: It's like watching Martha Graham dance at 80. I kind of missed the 60 years leading up to it to make me look good at work at 80s.

[18:37] Stacey: That's awesome. How are you popping up, though? You pop up fast.

[18:43] Sheila: I wrote a swordboard for years. I wrote a Funboard for most of my surfing years, which was about between seven and 8ft. And I backed down onto a short board a couple of times on like a six or whatever for six months or a year or whatever. And then after my daughter was born, I think I had like a 610 but now I'm very dedicated to shortboarding and I discovered these amazing things, the instructional videos. Right. But it's three years now that I've been almost exclusively on a shortboard. And I can say finally, three years later, it's finally starting to come together.

[19:27] Stacey: Good years.

[19:29] Sheila: So it's been hard. And I'm taking I started this program, it's so cool. It's called wave key. K I wave key. It's this guy, Brad Gerlach, and it's kind of like a tight t of surfing kind of thing. And it's this year long program that you commit to. And he's so cool. He's just so relaxing and calming and just the way he introduces everything and he makes you just slow everything down. So right now I'm working on my backside take off. He doesn't call it the pop up my backside take off.

[19:58] Stacey: Oh, nice.

[20:01] Sheila: There's just a forever to learn. And this program is for advanced surfers, too. Like, anybody can learn stuff, but yeah, I just love it. I never knew about any of this. I never took lessons, I never knew about instruction. I had some friends give me some tips here and there. So it only hit me about six months ago that there's all this information.

[20:21] Stacey: Oh, yeah.

[20:23] Sheila: So I think it's not about popping up fast, it's about popping up smooth and definitely doing on land. So, for instance, this Wave Key that I'm taking, like, I'm practicing three times a day, and the long practices are 21 waves. So if I did that, I'd be popping up 63 times a day.

[20:41] Stacey: Wow.

[20:43] Sheila: And his whole thing is and it's fun. It's kind of not a cheap program, but it's fun. So I'll do it when I used to just try to pop up before and make myself practice pop ups. I just would do like five and I'd be like, okay, whatever. I'll do a follow up, I'll let you know.

[21:02] Stacey: That's where I'm at. I lay in bed and I'm like, okay, get up and do your pop.

[21:06] Sheila: Yeah, they're just not but I highly encourage you to check this out. And now it's for shortboarding, but I.

[21:12] Stacey: Think they have a longboard that's my goal.

[21:15] Sheila: You'd have to look in there because it'll talk about things like landing with your heel on the rail to tip the board. So you're not going to want to do that. But I think he's got a program for advancing anyways, check it out and you'll find him. He's a super cool guy. All right, well, yeah, we're having fun with tangents. Yeah, I think we kind of just covered some of this and maybe it's just practice and belief in yourself, but are there any other tips you have for like just practical, real tips, like, of what you're going to face as a bigger woman? Do you have to work on your upper body strength? Like, you know, how would you help people?

[21:54] Stacey: Hey, I would say even I'm going to start before like getting yourself ready physically, strength wise and all that is, and anybody, whatever size you are, is when I went out there and I started to surf. I know this is difficult for a lot of people, but you really do have to get out there as much as you can. As much as you can. It's all muscle memory. Luckily for me, I had that opportunity. I worked my own hours and I was chasing the waves based on it didn't matter what hour it was because I'd be like, oh, I'm coming in at eleven today, or back twelve years ago or so. I was lucky to work remote. So I would like fly down to Costa Rica and be in the water all the time and say, oh, you can stay for as long as you want my work. I was lucky that way. So I'm going to say just get out there as much as you can. And now I'm lazy now because I wait till the waves are perfect, which I hate that about myself now, but I sit there and I'm like, oh, it's not that good today, but I should just always get out there. I'm just being lazy. I want to say like, get out there and do it now for your body strength and all of that. Even the little things make a difference. When I first started training for it, I was doing such the baby exercises, just like sit ups, push ups, stretching. So I didn't go to the extreme of like, what is an actual surf workout back in the day. So obviously you can go on to online and search any of those like the one you're doing too. And there's another woman who's been great in New Zealand, and she does mobility because as you get older and we didn't touch on that. I'm older as well now. I'm 54. So I need to keep my muscles flexible and strong. So your weight training to keep them strong, keeping the stretching going as well is very important. But as an overweight person, yeah, you've got to get your muscles strong and flexible. That's key.

[24:04] Sheila: That's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And I love just the idea of starting with something. I just think some people are great at jumping in and just a full commitment. But like you said, the baby workouts, like, just get your body moving. Get your body moving, strengthening it, get into your body, feel your body no matter where you're at. And it's the same for any fitness level, too. It's getting connected in your body. But definitely some people think I think they can just like they ever not doing anything, but let's learn how to surf. So that's a good path to injury and frustration. So I love that. So I want to go to a thing that we talked about that a very personal piece that we talked about and to sort of preface this was you have been very comfortable with high adrenaline. You had incredible drive. You rocketed to competitive levels. We'll backtrack and talk about some of the adrenaline things that you've done, like jumping out of helicopters to go snowboarding, or maybe we can segue into that. But we also talked about that. You are realizing that a lot of this ability to focus in this hyper intensive way is attributed to what's, your discovery.

[25:30] Stacey: Yeah. So this is the first time ever I've said it in any interview that I've had, and I've had a bunch in regards to my competitive career as I have bipolar disorder. And that looking back at how I was and what I do, I had no fear. I didn't have any fear. I had a hyper focused what happens is with that is I get hyper focused on something, and if I want to do that, I'm going to do it. It doesn't matter what. So it's sort of like think of a freight train and moving forward. I have this idea, I'm like, okay, I'm going to be a surfer. That doesn't mean I'm going to go out one time a week. I get out there and I am out there. I was out there five times a week, six times a week when I first wanted to do it. So it's like a lot of business owners have bipolar disorder because we do have this drive and ambition that we're going to do this thing. And sometimes you push other things aside and you just go straight for it like a freight train. And I do feel like definitely that had a lot to do with when I first started, how I got to where I was, because I was non stop and another thing with it is we have heightened energy, so the heightened energy may allow me to go. The downside of that is, yes, we would have downsides, which would be you have a long period of energy, could be two weeks of energy injury, and then you have a down period that you're recouping from basically not getting much rest, going, going.

[27:20] Sheila: And how did you manage that at the time? How did you manage those down times at the time?

[27:26] Stacey: So I did find out about it, and before I did start surfing so it was in 2000, I found out about it, and I was medicated, but at the time I started surfing, I stopped taking my medicine, but not realizing that how it would affect me, I just thought, oh, I'm fine. A lot of people go off their medicine that have bipolar disorder because they miss that heightened experience. It's like happiness, joy, and exciting. That's what it's like. A lot of people purposely go off of it because they miss that. They don't like to be it's not like a sedation. It's more like a normal fee. If you want to see you're taking.

[28:13] Sheila: A super high, like the best wave you ever rode. But now you can only ride a two foot wave. Like, it's still a wave, but kind of a sense. And that's kind of what we're talking about that I want. Thank you so much for talking about this, because I know it's going to speak to people. But now you're kind of dealing with this feeling of me and not having the motivation to go out no matter what. So what's changed for you? Did you start medication again or did.

[28:46] Stacey: You and it does definitely it grounds me and it makes me a little less yeah, I have more fear to go out into something wow. Yeah. Which is not a normal feeling for me. And I'm trying to figure that out. Is it because I'm older now? Is it because of that? Is it because of the medicine? Or just because I'm being a more cautious older woman now? But I'm hearing about a lot of women starting at my age, like, they're starting surfing at my age. I'd love to hear from them to see how they're doing. And I do actually hear from them a lot, and I actually coach them, and they'll say, oh, my gosh, I'm out there. And sometimes I just won't commit to the wave. And I will coach them on things that I'm going out and paddling out in smaller ways now. But I know what they're feeling because that's what I used to feel. So I give them tips and I'll say, in order to commit to that wave, you have to say to yourself and have confidence in yourself, I've done this before, I've done this before. I can do it. And then just commit to it because you're telling yourself, I did it. I can do. This. And another thing I used to do is when I was out in the waves, and I would say I was competing in Mexico or Costa Rica or something, and I would be scared because these waves are so big coming at me, the sets coming in, and I'm like, oh, my God. I would say, okay, relax your muscle, Stacy, and breathe, because just think you're in your home break. Okay. And that's the same thing as, I've done this before. I know it because yeah, but I feel like those things right now, to me, what I have a challenge with right now is paddling out into big waves. Once I'm out there, I'd probably be fine, but getting caught on the inside, I just don't want to do it anymore.

[30:35] Sheila: First of all, what do you consider big at this time in your life?

[30:38] Stacey: All right.

[30:40] Sheila: Intimidating.

[30:41] Stacey: Like you said, there's different ways. I like riding point breaks because I can paddle out on the point break in an easy it's easier because you go around the white water, and you don't have to go through the white water. The white water, to me, is the most exhausting thing. And Tiring, remember, I'm a stand up paddle surfer, so let's talk standard paddle surfing for a second. It's what I'm best at when I'm out in big waves. And I'll tell you what it big is to me. So going up over the whitewater, there's a break near me now that I have to go up over eight rows of whitewater some days. Just think of if I miss one, I'm standing up on the board. If I miss one of those, which is likely, because most people do, even when you're competing, people miss it. It's so much energy that you have.

[31:30] Sheila: Oh, my gosh.

[31:31] Stacey: Yeah. And you're caught on the inside, and then you're, like, trying to get back up on the board and get upstanding on the board to go up over the whitewater. I'll just tell you, like, whitewater is the most scary thing for me. So I'll just say that it's not scary, but I don't want to put in that energy if I'm going to get caught on the inside for a long time. So if it's a point break and it's easy to get out there, then I'm fine with whatever wave it is. If it's a clean day, right. If it's a clean, easy way wave coming in, I'm fine with that. Now, I could still be fine on, like, an eight foot wave at that, like, at a right point break. I know usually they're at about, I'd say 5ft, like five, four, three. Because I can still ride this right point break easy here. Now, for me, you're asking what one would be discouraging to me would probably be on a day in Costa Rica. If it says 3ft, it's usually like, a hard six foot wave. And could I ride that six foot wave? Yeah. No problem. But does that heavy whitewater coming in with that? Am I to do that? Yeah, probably. So I like to go out when it's more like it says two to three or even two, and the two is more like a three.

[32:56] Sheila: Right, okay. Well, that's really interesting talking about going out over the whitewater on a stand up board, because where I've mostly seen it, because here in Kona, well, it's reef break, so there's some point break, but it's reflex. So there's usually channels, or at least momentary channels, like I know what you're talking about, which is walls of whitewater coming out, too. Beach breaks and big beach break with relatively even coastline so that there's very little window. So that's really intimidating to me to think about trying to have to bust.

[33:39] Stacey: Through it because I can do it.

[33:43] Sheila: So it's timing. Right. You just got to get the timing to get you to punch your board through while standing at okay, yeah. I'll just give you a little hail. I am so bad at that. My daughter and the young girls here, they take their longboards and they just have this technique where they just lean back and just jump over the white water. And this is not what happens to me when I try that. When I tried that, I just go so I have to turtle when I ride and the turtle is so tiring on an SUP do you turtle or suppose when you get caught on the whitewater, what do you do?

[34:19] Stacey: Yeah, so you do have to be up on top of the board. You can never turtle roll it. It's way too big for that. So you just have to get back on your board. Sometimes if I get right back on it, I might do my knees for a little bit, but if I was competing, I could only do like five strokes on my knees. Like you have to do or you get points deducted. What you need to do is you get back on, you're standing up. So there's techniques and I teach the techniques, too, on how do you get over. Now, these are whitewaters, could be 3ft high whitewater.

[34:58] Sheila: Exactly, yeah.

[35:00] Stacey: So you have to get up over that whitewater. So I go into a side stance, like a surf stance, because, you know, when paddle boarding, we paddle with our feet straight because that's more power for us. If I'm going to pop up over the wave, I step back and then I pop up over like a pop a wheelie, almost like what you saw the girls doing, what you saw the girls do. You go back and then you're up and then you push forward to go through it. So I use the paddle when I'm in the white, like I use the white water. You have to be paddling when you're in that. If not, you're going to get pushed back off.

[35:35] Sheila: Yeah, there's a technique to it. That's cool. That's cool to hear about it.

[35:41] Stacey: And then you just keep paddling really hard because the next one is coming. So there's no lull at this break near me right now. There's no lull because there's three swells coming in. So you don't have this nice long lull. And that's what I used to have in Boston. Remember, I told you, is one swell coming in? It will be like, oh, here's the lull in between the sets.

[36:09] Sheila: That's more like humble. Yeah, no lulls. I mean, I didn't know what that was until at least where I learned. I remember right after I started, after I've been surfing, I think three or four months. And I started at Humble, and then I went down to Costa Rica, and it was intense. There were a lot of amazing experiences. The main thing I remember thinking is like, what's missing? What's missing? What's missing? Oh, fear of death. Because I always thought I was just going to die. I didn't care. This crazy part of my life. So Humboldt County, the water is like 48 deg. That was great white. You're just getting pounded into the stand or dragged into the rocks all the time, and then a lot of clothes out. So I'd go off on this giant eight foot face, like, barreling down, like we have fun. Fall off, completely wiped out, and then get dragged in and held down. So that's what I thought surfing was.

[37:07] Stacey: Oh, my God.

[37:08] Sheila: When I first went, and I was in warm water waves and whatever, I'm like, what's missing? What's missing? That's what's missing. Not that you can definitely if there's heavy waves in Costa Rica, I could totally be very hairy. But yeah, I just remember that feeling.

[37:22] Stacey: I totally know what you mean.

[37:24] Sheila: And then, yeah, them coming and coming and coming and coming and coming, and they don't stop. There's no relief.

[37:31] Stacey: No, it's not the best way to learn. The best way to learn is, like, in the hardest condition.

[37:36] Sheila: It's true, because then everything else I remember when I moved down to La after my first year, and it's not like I was a great surfer or anything, but I was fearless at the time. And I went to a county line, and they probably had and a half, which I honestly didn't think was that big because I had been surfing these crazy waves. And I just remember, like, paddling and just taking off and these guys you were charging. I'm like, oh, really? Now, though, I have a lot of fear. So it's totally different now. I got older and then having a child and reef break will really do that to you, too. Like when you get pounded into the rocks and cut. So, anyways, I know it's so crazy. We're so crazy. We're all crazy. But it's so fun thinking of crazy. Oh, actually, I want to ask you one quick question before we go into my other big subject. So when you're judging I'm just curious, when you're in the judging room, do the judges talk to each other or.

[38:35] Stacey: Do you just make your name only after the mark if there's a question? Because the thing is, my range might be different from someone else's range, and they might even after the fact, it might be a question of something, but not like during all your marketing.

[38:58] Sheila: Okay. I always wondered, and I don't know what it's like in the WSL, but if they're just like, okay, so the idea is you get your markdown and then you talk about it afterwards.

[39:06] Stacey: Yeah. And it's only there's an issue. So there's the judges and then there's a higher up judge that if you had a question, you would really just ask that higher up judge. Yeah, because everybody say the first person out there is like, almost ten. And all three, maybe three most of the times I had three judges. But if everybody was judging and that ten we want to leave leeway for, something else happens and someone else gets woah. What if this is one little bit better? So that would be like a 98 or something instead of a ten. And then if someone else might leave a little bit more leeway, so their highest might be like a 9.2. Right. I might put a 9.8 on that because I might be wow, there's not much space to to go get, but we don't really talk about that.

[40:04] Sheila: Okay. No, that's cool. That was my gossip question. So we're handling the big topics today. So we've got big topics about being a woman, because, first of all, bipolar is not something I talked about a lot. And then you and I chatted about this briefly. Menopause.

[40:26] Stacey: Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.

[40:28] Sheila: And how our bodies are changing and how we're dealing with that, because there's a big window for women from perimenopause to the process of menopause to post menopause. There's so many different changes we go through and both physically and mentally. And one of the things I would talk about is for sure, overall, as a woman, as a person, I care a lot less about what people think. I'm definitely way more grounded in that. I'm also a little grouchier about other people. I could see myself becoming one of those women that just wants to whack people over with a cane. I can just totally see that part. And it's not even better because I've always been like, a people pleaser and like, really nice and all those kind of things. So it's interesting to watch that come. I just feel way more in my body. But all of that said, during the process of it, for me, as it really started to kick in and like, the major hot flashes came and the weight gain came and this big middle section came, and all of this stuff that starts happening.

[41:37] Stacey: It's not just me.

[41:38] Sheila: No, exactly. And then I like to like we talked about, because I was always like, I'm never going to do hormones. I'm just going to do it naturally. And then I kind of tried I had this young living oil progesterones Plus, and I kind of tried that. And another friend of mine told me, try this progesterone cream. So I tried that, and then when I started walking, I was peeing on myself when I was walking. Like, weird stuff happened from playing with the hormones. And then if you're going to go to one of those, a naturopathic or a functional doctor or whatever, they're great, but it's really expensive and really out of reach for a lot of women. So I ended up, in the end going on hormones, HRT, like progesterone and estrogen. And it started with it this was fun. Started with a depository. Okay, so there's a lot of fun, like, oh, I'm just going to stick this up, AJ. This morning.

[42:38] Stacey: Oh, my God.

[42:40] Sheila: It worked. I think I had to do it every other day or something, and it worked. It took away the hot flashes. It stopped the weight gain.

[42:49] Stacey: Really?

[42:49] Sheila: Well, it kind of halted it, slowed it, but then it stopped working completely. And then I had to like so then I started taking the pills. So I took Estrogen. And I'm probably get people saying, like, you can do it the natural way, but I'm happy. I'm happy. Nobody adjusts me. I'm happy as I could be. And then they have to give you progesterone to counteract that. But ironically, the other reason I want to talk about it is my female OB and my female doctor were of no use to me. They just were basically like, well, we don't really treat menopause, and if you're we can kind of treat the symptoms, but if you're not really having that series of symptoms, I couldn't get care. So I kept asking other doctors, and I found it was a male doctor, ironically, who ended up just explaining things really carefully to me. For me personally, me, I'm one woman, and I know a lot of other women who have very different journeys. That is what worked for me, the very traditional HRT.

[43:48] Stacey: What is about it?

[43:49] Sheila: So, hormone replacement therapy.

[43:51] Stacey: Okay.

[43:53] Sheila: And I went through all the thoughts, like, are you supposed to do that? Are we meant to do that? It's like, well, that's stupid. What I do take is estrogen and progesterone. I take it in pill form. My insurance covers it. It costs $16 a month, and it's helped me a great deal.

[44:14] Stacey: Any negative?

[44:16] Sheila: I haven't noticed any.

[44:18] Stacey: How long have you been taking it?

[44:20] Sheila: Two years.

[44:21] Stacey: Oh, my goodness. I never like to touch with a mess with nature. I always never thought about doing it. And I remember one doctor saying to me, it was just like a doctor I had to see in Costa Rica for getting health insurance. So he was like, oh, do you take hormone replacement? And I was like, no. He goes, oh, really? Like, he was so surprised. And then I was like, oh, okay. Should I be? So that's when I first maybe five years ago, but I went through menopause at 47, so I'm 54 and no, it's funny, when you were talking about this just now, I thought to myself, oh, my God, that's when I stopped competing. Absolutely.

[45:10] Sheila: Do you think they were related?

[45:12] Stacey: No, I don't know. Maybe a lot of things happened around that year, but I mean, wow. I don't know if I told you, but my mom passed. Remember my mom passed?

[45:23] Sheila: Oh, yeah.

[45:25] Stacey: But I was like, you just mentioned that could have been, it could have been. But I've always been overweight, so I didn't notice any weight gain until coming onto me until about a year or two ago, which was at age 52, 53. And then I started noticing more things happening. Well, I have a scale that shows my BMI, my body mass index. So I was like, pushing 30, which after 30 is not a good idea anytime, but I start going up and up and up and up. So, like, my fat content was going up, my muscle mass was going down, and I was like, oh, my God, what am I doing different? Like, I wasn't doing anything different.

[46:10] Sheila: Right, exactly. That's what's so weird. And here's the thing. This is really why I wanted to talk about it. For anybody who's like, why are we talking about those in a store podcast? Because it's like your body in a way I mean, a woman's body is always changing, right? Like, we go through periods, and if you have children, you go through that. So we're kind of used to changes, but you're not used to everything you've ever done not working anymore. That's weird. It's weird when oh, okay, well, I used to be able to trim my weight down or feel a certain way by eating a certain way. Oh, I used to be able to build muscle by doing this and like, oh, no, none of that works anymore. And it's where it gets in your head and you start to feel well, a lot of different things. You may not feel as juicy, and I mean, that in us on a soul level, too. Not just on a personal level, but it's just that it feels different. And chemically, you feel different. You might feel less edge. That might have been part of it for you. You kind of don't have drive in the same way, but at the same time, you have all this clarity. You forget words. I don't know if that happened to you.

[47:31] Stacey: Well, actually, yeah, one of the things that happened with me is I forget words, but I don't know if it's attributed to that because I actually became disabled from two concussions. Like, I had two concussions back to back, and it affected me like it's affected my life. But I continued to surf and send a pedal surf. I continue to do that, but the memory thing for me, has been an issue. I'm actually going to Boston. I'm getting checked for memory next week.

[48:06] Sheila: Oh, wow. Well, good luck with that. Yeah. To bring it back to that piece of maybe the onset of menopause having something to do with devtailing together with this drive. With that energy level yeah. It's something I guess. Again. I guess I want to just bring it up because it's not spoken about. And we have a lot of different reactions. And there's a lot of people telling us what we're supposed to do about it or not do about it.

[48:44] Stacey: I need to start reading up on it. I need to start reading up on it. Yeah.

[48:50] Sheila: And just seeing how you feel, because, again, it's really personal, too. But most of my friends have struggled with weight gain, with people who are really thin and gained weight very suddenly, and some of them are totally cool with it or have accepted it, and some of them are not. Building muscle is way harder. I had to actually go to a gym, which I don't do, but, boy, it was great when I did.

[49:17] Stacey: Yeah. Yeah.

[49:18] Sheila: I guess what I want anybody who might be hearing this and relate to it all is just whatever you're experiencing is just normal.

[49:26] Stacey: That's it. Exactly.

[49:29] Sheila: And it's okay to listen to it, and it's okay to do whatever you need.

[49:33] Stacey: And, you know, I'd love to say, like, I've been overweight my whole life, so for those people that were thinner and surfing, maybe when they were younger or even maybe they started in their 40s, too, but now in their 50s, they're feeling weight gain. And don't be embarrassed to get out there. Don't be embarrassed because you're gaining weight. And if you're feeling a little weaker yeah. You just have to do a little bit more strengthening, strength training and stuff like that.

[50:01] Sheila: Yeah, that's great. That's so helpful. So taking that kind of, in a way, to this new place that you're in. You had mentioned that getting into Longboarding right now was really important to you, and part of it had to do with the sense of you being I don't know if it's exactly an outsider, but you being the only one, like the groundbreaker, like, all of these different pieces. So I wanted to ask you about that.

[50:35] Stacey: Oh, I know. What was the question exactly, though, about it?

[50:40] Sheila: I think my question was, let's see, why is it so important to you? Like, you recently started why is it so important for you?

[50:47] Stacey: I've never had a problem being the outsider. I've never had a problem. I don't worry what other people are thinking, but sometimes, for example, I just want to say, like, in the past, what I was like, all my friends who were surfing in 2012, I think it was. They're like, let's go to this surf camp. And this surf camp was like, surf, surf, surf. Not stand up paddle, surf. It's very well known, very well known camp. And I was like, let's all just go together down on a trip. Now we want to go to the camp. And I was like, oh, I ride a stand up paddle circle. I'm an outsider, right? But I never restricted me from doing what I wanted to do. I roadways with all the other people. I would bring my board up like heavy rocks in New England when we would go find a new break or something. So this time when we went to the surf camp, I took my measures I needed to take, and my measures I needed to take were calling that surf camp and saying, hey, I'm bringing my subsurf stand up paddle is sub surf board. Is that okay? Oh, yeah, sure. No problem. Well, this is a receptionist, but I was reading, and I knew from the industry that they were putting out stickers saying, no, stand up paddleboarding. Like stickers, right?

[52:04] Sheila: Wow.

[52:04] Stacey: This particular camp, right? I'm not going to say who it was. So I'm like, this receptionist. Maybe she doesn't know me. She's just saying, yeah, just come. So I called the managers, and I think I might even talk to the owner. And I was like, I just want to make sure I'm okay coming down there and being in the camp. Oh, yeah, no problem. And when I went, it was amazing. The guys that were our coaches, they saw me stand up paddle boarding, and they were in awe because when they first put the board onto the boat or onto the buses, they're like, oh, my God, what is this thing? And then they see me taking a wave, and this guy I still know him to this day. This was in 2012 he comes up to me, and he goes, oh, my God, that was awesome. They're like, they had no idea what you can do on it. And then these guys who are really good surfers, they tried the board, and they can surf anything. They can surf anything. I want to be able to surf anything, right? That's what I want to be. I don't want to be limited to just one thing. I don't think it's because I want a challenge in my life, because I don't I think it's because I don't want the challenge anymore. And my challenge for me is that's a big board to lug around, and I have to lug around my paddle, and it's just a different concept of getting out to the whitewater. So I really want to be one of the in crowd now, right?

[53:29] Sheila: Exactly.

[53:32] Stacey: I think that's it. I want to be able to just ride anything and be anywhere. And it's hard to get a rental board for me if I go to Hawaii. So when I went up to California and I was renting aboard. I can't get what my subsurf was that I like, or even at all. So I also want that flexibility to do that. And I teach it. I teach longboard stand up, longboard surfing, and I coach it. So I want to be able to do it. And that's where I'm at now. And am I in the beginning and I am I a beginner in it? Yes, I am still in the whitewater. I feel like it's hard for me to pop up because I'm so big, and that's probably like you were asking me at the beginning why did I go to stand up paddle surfing. Probably because I didn't pop up on that and I saw something else. I'm like, oh, I'll just do this. So, yes, I hope to be able to do what I can do. I mean, right now where I coach surfing is I stay with all the women in the whitewater because that's just my forte. But I want to be able to get out into greens on surfboard. I would love to do a shortboard, but that's another, like, probably £100, lose £80.

[54:48] Sheila: It's another animal, that's for sure. There are yes, you can get them with really wide nose and lots of rotation, but then it's just the journey of learning how to develop speed. It's a different piece. But the thing about a shortboard, I mean, think about this, is you can duck dive, and that changes your life.

[55:10] Stacey: That's what I want to do.

[55:12] Sheila: That changes your life. And you can have a pretty good size shortboard, like six, eight with a lot of folks and be able to duck dive it. I don't know if you're in a system and what you've done before. I would actually talk to somebody about that.

[55:28] Stacey: There we go.

[55:29] Sheila: Because even if it's super frustrating right at first, you may find that, you know what, it's not really any harder for me to pop up on this thing. And you're going to know how to.

[55:42] Stacey: Grab one and go out there. That's what I should just do, grab one and see which ones, like in duct tape, then that's what I should do.

[55:50] Sheila: And you know how to surf already. You know how to surf. So if you just have a shoreboard with some volume, there we go. Some leaders in there. That's what I think. That's my opinion. If it's just boo, then that's fine.

[56:07] Stacey: But that's what we're going to do. I'm going to do it.

[56:10] Sheila: I mean, I'm so lazy about going on my eight foot board now for the same reason. I'm just like, I have to deal with all that white water. So I guess we just get to a point. So it's somewhere in between. Like, you have to have more foam because it's harder to catch waves, and it's tiring, and the paddling is different because you're in a more arts position and there's a whole other thing, but I think it'd be fun for you to check it out.

[56:32] Stacey: Yeah, I might do that.

[56:33] Sheila: So what is your favorite place that you've ever served?

[56:38] Stacey: Oh, wow, that's so tough to say. I would call it more like thinking of some of my favorite waves I took rather than my favorite place.

[56:47] Sheila: Okay.

[56:49] Stacey: Is that cool or you want me.

[56:50] Sheila: To yeah, just say your favorite. I mean, if you have one favorite wave or memory, that's awesome. But if you want to just talk about some favorite waves, I just love wave stores.

[56:60] Stacey: Yeah, like, there's this place that here, this particular place that I've tattooed out to is a right point break, really far out. A point break really far out. And you know what? That's when my sub surfboard is awesome because I paddle out from the beach all the way out to the point, which might take me, like, ten minutes maybe to get out. Yeah. So a surfer doesn't go, they get dropped off by boats, maybe.

[57:29] Sheila: Yeah.

[57:30] Stacey: Which one time happened when I was out there, there's a boat that dropped some people off, but you can't paddle from the beach out to it. So this particular one is a reef point break, and I like the reef breaks because it sucks back a lot, but you got to hurry up and get on it fast and whatever. But this one, I had both my favorite wave, and I had both my most scariest wave.

[57:58] Sheila: Oh, perfect. Okay. Yeah.

[58:03] Stacey: I haven't gone out to it in a long time, but I would love to do it again because I do feel comfortable at point breaks, just because if you do, like, you end up on the inside, it's easier to get out of them, but, like, you know, they're faster, and they're faster. If there's a crowd there, it's hard to get into it, but I know most of the people at the break, so yeah, this one I took, this is probably one of my biggest waves, so I feel like it was like that one where I was saying it was, like, almost a ten foot wave, and some guys like, oh, that's not big. It's still always be big to me.

[58:45] Sheila: Yeah.

[58:46] Stacey: So tennis. So that day I had, like, my finest wave. I like it. I love the big high drop in one of my favorite things, like, just dropping in and doing a bottom turn. And I'm not, like, the greatest huge cutbacks or anything, but I just love dropping in. So that was, like, my funnest day over there, and it was forgiving too, once you got on it.

[59:11] Sheila: Right.

[59:14] Stacey: And then I took the drop, and then after I was cutting back, and then this one, I ended up not popping back up over the wave. I think that I got caught on the inside, and when I did, I got pounded really far down. I hit the reef, but not. Too bad, just on my foot. So that wasn't the bad part. The part that was scary to me and it was the only scary part I remember from surfing was I didn't know which way was up and I really didn't think I was going to make it to my breath. And that day I said to my mom, I said to my kids and my mom and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And then, oh my God, today is my day. But I made it, I made it up. And then people that were there that day after we got out, they're like, are you okay, Stacey? And I was like, yeah, I'm okay. But that was my only close call in twelve years really having with other girls like that. I was surfing another break with them and they pretty much got water inside, water in their lungs almost. And that day nothing happened to me.

[01:00:28] Sheila: Yeah, I remember being severely humbled in some big conditions because I hadn't really paid any consequences yet and I was used to being pretty large and I went out in conditions I absolutely did have no business being out. And I'm not saying that was your story.

[01:00:44] Stacey: Good for you, I got it.

[01:00:46] Sheila: Yeah, well, what happened is it's a place, it's called the North Eddy in Humble where the swell comes in. It can get really big, but there's a channel, like a conveyor belt, so right next to the jetty it just pulls you right out. So it's great in terms of getting through the channel. But what I didn't realize is as the sets were building, I was watching these huge sets and going like, oh it's so cool, and just thinking I could catch an insider and I hadn't been very long and I'm like watching. I don't realize that I've been actually pulled out and I'm actually out where the steps are coming. And then like a big sneaker set came and it was just this giant wave and it just drilled me down to the bottom and then I didn't know, I didn't even know the trick then that you turn your board towards the shore and just whatever, you can try and go in. But then I got pulled out further and another one came and so I just had repeated hold downs and I realized I'm like, oh, I see the problem because I haven't been scared of big waves before. I'm like, it's oxygen. Oxygen is the problem. The lack of oxygen. So yeah, that is a very scary feeling. And so I remember that being upside down, not knowing where I was, not moving, and my board had tombstone, it was creepy. So yeah, I hear you on that.

[01:02:06] Stacey: Oh my gosh. The thing you just reminded me of is something good to work on is like holding our breath too. So breathing, that is a really good thing.

[01:02:17] Sheila: And even if you do the breath like someone taught me for free diving, if you just even simply take five deep breaths before you go out, you get more oxygenated and it's very calming anyways. There's a whole people that are taking all classes on breathwork and stuff, but even just doing that simple part.

[01:02:34] Stacey: Yeah, exactly.

[01:02:42] Sheila: So I like to ask this to people. What is your favorite part of your surfing?

[01:02:47] Stacey: I like being one with the ocean. I love to be going out there and just it's like a meditation to me. It could be even on days where I only maybe caught one wave. Now I'm okay with that. Back in the day, I might not have because I never did only one way, but now sometimes I go out and I went out, for example, in California, and I had oh, this is another thing that's held me back, a lot of things, and I'm trying to figure out what has held me back a little bit. But I had rotator cuff injury, and that's been going on for about three years, but I didn't know it. I just thought it was when I switched over to learn in 2020. So it's been 20, but in 2020, I started longboard surfing a little bit more and my arm started hurting. It was my left arm, but I thought it was, oh, it's just because I'm doing a new type of paddling and not stand up paddle surfing. And I just let it go. And I was hurting. Hurting. Hurting. Hurting to the point where I know one day when I went out with my friend. We went out to paddle out. And I was like. I can barely lift my arm. But I wanted to surf so bad. Like. She was visiting and I went out and it was a heavy day. So I didn't have to barely paddle into the wave itself. But paddling back out. I was like, it was hurting so bad that I went and I got it checked and like, oh, you have a torn ligament, or whatever it is. A torn tendon. You have three have tendonitis. So like, four of my tendons? Yes. So now I'm finally getting that back. But why I brought that up is because even when I did go out there and I could only catch one waiver, I wasn't able to even pale lift my arm. I liked being out there in the ocean with the waves and feeling one with the ocean. And I do feel like when I take a wave, it's like a connection for me. Yes.

[01:04:58] Sheila: I love that. I love that. What are you working on if there's something specific, I mean, there's always lots of things surfers are working on, but is there something specific you're working on right now?

[01:05:10] Stacey: Yeah, as we mentioned on the longboard surfing, what I would like to do is I want to work on my pop up more, so I'm working on that, and I want to work at getting out more, getting out there more often than not because I live beachfront and everybody will be like, what the heck? Why don't you go out every day now? So that is my goals right now are really just to be on the water more often than like I used to be. Remember like five days a week I used to be out there and that's what I want to do.

[01:05:48] Sheila: It sounds like it's just that reconnecting. Just if you think of it as, like, connecting with that happy place more than having to, because it's an adjustment going from the drive. I mean, obviously it came from joy, but the drive of competing, the drive of improving. We always are improving because you can't help but not think, oh, I wish that weight was so good. And then the next time you're like, oh, if my foot had just been in this position, would have been this. But yeah, that place. I remember it started to get really crowded here and I started to lose my joy and I actually just started, like, snorkeling for a while and just getting in the water. And then it was so easy and I wasn't jockeying with people. And then slowly the stoke just kind of came back and I got all fired up again. Now I have to watch it because I get so cranky, because to me, it's a meditation, too. And so when a bunch of people are like, then moving in, I have to not be that crack to the old lady. I'm like, Well, I'm like grouchy aunty now in the water.

[01:06:55] Stacey: Just try to ignore them. Because I remember that used to be, like, in New England a lot of times here where I live, in front of my house, nobody goes. It's not a great wave. That's why nobody goes there. But I ride it when it's like just for practicing. Pop up in the whitewater so there's nobody out there. Sometimes it's scary, like being in the ocean by yourself. Yeah, but there's enough people, like, walking by. But if something happened but sometimes it's just me. I love that.

[01:07:30] Sheila: I went out really early the other morning and I was out when it was still pretty much dark, and I don't do that often, and it was small enough that I didn't feel really unsafe. But it was just so amazing being there completely by myself in the quiet. As the light started to come, I couldn't catch away. But it didn't matter. Again, I finally could, but the water was still flat and inky. It was like, hard to figure out where to paddle. But yeah, it's just such an incredible gift to live. I know where we live and be able to do this. Last question. Thank you for spending all this time. You have this whole identity and this whole thing. So do you know what the next step is for you?

[01:08:16] Stacey: Yeah, you know what as my kids told me again, they told me all the right things. They said for those who can't do.

[01:08:26] Sheila: Teacher, I actually believe teaching is its own. Yeah, I don't like to have teachers gift in that, but yeah, totally.

[01:08:36] Stacey: No, but I've been doing it for so long. But I have been teaching for twelve years too and I do enjoy that. But I just talked to one of the other instructors with me and it's hard for us because I think that's what happened to me, to be honest, is that I started teaching it more.

[01:08:52] Sheila: Than doing it right.

[01:08:54] Stacey: And I do want to incorporate what we just talked about is me myself getting back out into the water. But also I love spreading the stoke. All my knowledge that I've learned, I do a lot of women's camps in the women's camps or I do a lot of online webinars too, and relaying my knowledge to people. I love it because I didn't have that when I started. I was self talk too, and you get beat up and all that. So I teach how not to get beat up and how to learn how to read surf reports and how to surf etiquette, I teach surf, etc.

[01:09:32] Sheila: It yeah much needed right now.

[01:09:37] Stacey: And he will really want to do that. Yes, it would be cool.

[01:09:40] Sheila: I don't know if you already do this, but if you don't already do, like online classes for etiquette and reports yeah. If you have links or anything, make sure you send them to me. Of course. Well, Stacey, thank you so much for spending all this time. It was really fun learning about your journey and thank you for sharing so much. We're really just women out there doing our thing and it's got its own challenges and I'll need to talk to a younger woman about what it's like to deal with being on your period and all that stuff. Don't have to deal with is a shark coming near me because of that. So anyways, really great. I do too. Well, have a wonderful night, Puerto Vita.

[01:10:32] Stacey: You too, Puerto Vita.

[01:10:34] Sheila: Talk to you soon.