Surfed naked at Blacks Beach

• Name: Shona Neufeld
• Age: 30
• From: San Diego
• Location: Sunset Cliffs

Shona Neufeld was walking to her car with board on head when I approached her. Neufeld is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, but she moved to San Diego after visiting.

“My first time I ever surfed I was naked in Blacks Beach. I came out here with a friend and we just bought a board and went for it. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing. I was 23 and living in New Mexico and I was debating moving out here and then I got on my first wave and I had to move out. I just had a blind passion that couldn’t be stopped, there was no quenching it.”

“That passion has kept propelling me forward. Surfing has a really long learning curve, probably the longest of anything I’ve ever tried. It took half a year to even stand up and to turn took another half a year, you’ve got to have a certain tenacity to make it happen.”

Today, Neufeld is surfing one of her three boards. “This is my nine-foot longboard. My ex boyfriend was a shaper, so he shaped this one for me. It’s got my undead mermaid logo on it which all my surfboards have, she’s my insignia.”