Lake Surfistas empower women lake surfers
Pleasant Beach in Port Colborne was host to a drove of women on Saturday as the Lake Surfistas hosted workshops and went out on the water.
Robin Pacquing, one of the women behind the Lake Surfistas, said the group is for women who are interested in the sports of surfing or stand up paddleboarding on the lower Great Lakes.
“Surfing in general is a huge thing that’s growing on the Great Lakes,” she said. “But in that, we’re seeing the biggest new wave of people going into it are women.”
For the fourth year, the group hosted its annual day filled with workshops run by the Lake Surfistas and other experts in the community that they’ve brought in to help.
She said surfing and stand up paddleboarding are primarily maledominated sports, even down to the people running the shops and all things involved with it. While she said they receive a ton of support from the men of the community, it’s always encouraging to see more women getting involved and helping each other out.
“We’re just trying to promote confidence and safety and competence in the women that are starting to get into it,” she said, noting that a lot of participants are trying it out for the first time later in life. “We want them to be safe and we want them to have fun.”
She said with the Great Lakes in particular, going out to surf or paddle can be going out into an extreme environment, so the hope is, with their workshops, the Lake Surfistas can help people feel more comfortable on the water.
She said women of all abilities are welcome at the event, and there is usually a steady flow of up to 100 women coming out for the day. She said the Lake Surfistas aren’t a school, but they like to take one day to do what they can for their fellow women.
The group was set up at Pleasant Beach Campground, just down the road from the beach itself, where there was a potluck, some vendors and socializing. On the beach, some of the workshops were underway as women learned to surf and stand up paddleboard.
Pacquing said the group hosts two surf workshops, two stand up paddleboard workshops and there are also forecasting workshops to be able to recognize the changing weather conditions.
She said for the first time, their ding repair workshop and how to take care of your board was also taught by a woman. She said that was exciting, again, because of how male-dominated the sport is otherwise.
She called the Lake Surfistas a labour of love and she’s encouraged to see women doing well.
While the Lake Surfistas do have a website, lakesurfistas. org, Pacquing said the best place to find the group is on either Facebook or Instagram.