Mauli Ola Foundation · Surf Experience Day
May the Wave
Heal Us All
Jacksonville Beach · Twenty frames from one morning
Mauli Ola Foundation runs Surf Experience Days for people living with cystic fibrosis, on the premise that the saline in ocean air and water does something close to what a nebulized treatment does. Hans Hagen, the foundation's executive director, explained the reasoning for our earlier feature (linked below). This is what it looked like on the sand.
The morning ran on volunteers. Members of Jacksonville Board Riders and Motes Militia were in the water before the first participant reached the shoreline and were still out there when the last board came in. They walked riders through the shorebreak, read the sets, pushed, and swam in ahead of the board so somebody was always waiting at the end of the ride.
These frames run in the order the morning did.
Part I
The beach
Jacksonville Beach Pier, shortly after eight.
Two tents on the sand, one asking what cystic fibrosis is, the other asking why surfing. Between them, the ocean the whole morning is built around.
Volunteers from Jacksonville Board Riders and Mauli Ola Foundation before the first session. Most of them would not leave the water for three hours.
Pop-ups on dry sand. Every participant walked through the motion here before anything moved underneath them.
Part II
Going out
Nobody walked into the water alone.
Hand to hand through the shorebreak. The volunteer on the left carries the board so the participants can concentrate on the footing.
A participant and a volunteer head out past the inside bar.
Waiting on the board between sets. Most of a Surf Experience Day is spent like this.
Paddling out. The volunteer stays within arm's reach the entire way.
Instruction in waist-deep water, a wave stacking up behind. The last thing said before a ride is usually about where to put your feet.
Part III
The rides
Some stood up. Some rode prone the whole morning. Both counted.
The first wave of the session for this surfer, taken prone.
A brother alongside, a volunteer pushing from behind, and a wave that went the whole way to the sand.
Between rides. Not every frame from a morning like this is loud.
A volunteer rides in alongside a surfer with a camera in his teeth, so the family goes home with footage from the water.
Under the pier, on her feet, unassisted.
The same surfer a moment later, arms wide, riding the wave in on her own.
The volunteer who pushed her into this wave is still treading water behind her, arms up.
A surfer on his own wave, no volunteer in the frame.
Part IV
After
What happens after the ride, and who is still standing there for it.
The celebration happens where the ride ends, chest-deep, before anyone reaches the sand.
The same surfer, his mother, and the volunteer who ran his session, in the water where the ride ended.
A volunteer walks a participant back up to the tents. He surfed the morning in a knee brace.
He walks his own board in and trades a high five with the volunteer who spent the morning alongside him. By this point they are wearing the same shirt.