“Nice board.”

The voice was sweet but firm, the kind that carried both kindness and authority – the kind you listen to. I looked up mid-rinse at the beach park shower and nearly froze. Standing there, in all her legendary grace, was Auntie Rell Sunn. Rell Sunn!

The woman who shaped my entire outlook on surfing as a pre-teen and made me believe that being a female wave rider was not only possible, but empowering . And here she was, casually admiring my board.

For the record, it was a total beater. A hand-me-down from my dad – yellowed, dinged, and light-years away from freshies most everyone else had. I’d spent years being embarrassed by that thing.

But Auntie Rell? She saw the soul in it. She had this effortless way of making you feel like you belonged, no matter what you rode. It was just another example of how she spread Aloha to the younger generation.

I come from a time where girls wore one-piece swimsuits with oversized boys’ board shorts, before the ubiquitous, Brazilian thong bikinis that are the standard North Shore uniform of girls today.

The author and her daughter, Naia, feeling the energy as a wave grips the bottom at Ehukai, next to Pipe. Photo: Christa Funk.

Back then, women’s surfing wasn’t commercialised like it is now. No massive sponsorships for the most part, no Instagram clips, and no influencer deals. There were only a handful of women consistently in the lineup, so if you paddled out, you were usually surrounded by men.

Being born and raised in Hawai’i, surfing was all about the community when I was growing up.

Families packed their coolers, stayed all day, and you’d find anything to ride – surfboards, boogie boards, paipo boards, bodysurfing fins, whatever kept you in the ...