You might be hard-pressed to encounter a surfer who doesn’t ask in the first five minutes of meeting if you’ve ever surfed—or if not, why not? This was a common thread among numerous conversations I had with local surfers, many of them scratching their heads at the idea that I have lived on the coast most of my life and have never dared to paddle out.
When I caught Nate Floyd on a balmy late afternoon at Wind and Wave, the watersports shop his family has owned and operated since 1987, he launched into his pitch. Not long ago, a woman in her mid-60s who had never surfed a day in her life came into the shop on a mission to begin her journey out into the waves. They talked about the craft, the community and the accessibility of the sport. “She bought a board that same day,” he said. And that’s how quickly it can happen for many people.
“Surfing is pretty welcoming,” he explained. “Corpus especially sees a lot of new faces”—not surprising, considering the possibilities ranging from adventure-seeking Air Force pilots on assignment to university students and tourists.
Many acknowledge surfing in Texas is one part opportunism and two heaping parts optimism. Windows of surf on the best days can be as brief as 30 minutes, and the best days may come maybe a handful of times a year. In a lifestyle largely dictated by the unpredictable and unforgiving patterns of the water, going with the flow isn’t a choice but rather a humbling exercise in patience and a trait of the lifestyle.
“An avid surfer becomes a meteorologist,” Floyd said while in front of an open tab on the shop’s computer, inspecting the upcoming coastal patterns around Costa Rica in anticipation of an upcoming trip. Most local surfers call JP Luby home, where the jetties conduct rip currents and break waves up into wedges, creating a hospitable environment for fishers and surfers alike.
Rachael Chaney, owner of Needles and Fins, said it’s not out of the ordinary to leave a sign on her shop door that simply says: “Out surfing, you should be too.”
Threads of the surf community as a whole can be found in the different pockets of culture throughout the city. A multitude of surf and skate shops, as well as surf and coastal environmental clubs in schools, plant the seeds further sown and nurtured by the welcoming community. On North Padre, you’re as likely to see the drummer from your favorite local band as you are your high school English teacher chasing a wave.
This sentiment proves common throughout the surfing community, here and at large. As Chaney put it, “the water is for everyone.” When people say surfing is a lifestyle, as much as it might sound like something pulled from a souvenir shop t-shirt, it holds true. Surfers have the special ability, by the nature of their craft, to do it—ideally—for most of their lives. This longevity is not something many sports can claim. By that virtue, a lot of the same players stay in the scene, bridging the intergenerational gap many subcultures can experience.
Chaney and Floyd both come from generational surfing families, with their parents also being notable figures in the surfing community, and have watched the scene evolve over the years.
“Both my parents were surfers, so I was always at the beach,” Chaney said, recalling her earliest memories on the beach with her parents. “It was either sit on the sand or paddle out.”
The scene in the Coastal Bend is full of young people like Chaney and Floyd, who hold deep respect for those who came before them, as well as an investment in keeping traditions in the community alive for the generations budding after them.
Floyd and his father, Frank, were vocal advocates for finding ways to save the beloved Bob Hall Pier, a favorite surfing locale that had incurred considerable damage from Hurricane Hanna in 2020. Many in the scene contributed their efforts to extensive research on fiscally feasible alternatives to a complete demolition of the historic landmark that had stood there for generations, since 1962.
While saving the pier was not the reality that came to pass, its reconstruction is expected to be complete at the end of 2025. The effort made to save it is just one of myriad examples of the community’s will to go the extra mile for the sanctity of history, tradition and the future of the scene.
Chaney dedicates her shop, Needles and Fins, to creating space for the worlds she inhabits to intersect and multiply, hosting surf movie nights and skate film premieres, on top of a slew of live music acts free of charge and for all ages. Her shop also favors carrying boards shaped by small, femme-made brands, something immensely important to her.
“One cool thing about the surf community in Corpus is there’s a lot of the same players around and it’s very familiar,” Chaney said, adding that with the evolution of the scene, the gender gap has lessened. “There are more women in the water, and I see more people of color surfing these days, which is fantastic. To me, maybe that’s saying that resources that weren’t so readily available when I was learning are out there. There’s less gatekeeping and a lot more diversity, which is the ultimate goal.”
