Chasing Long Lefts & Shaping Surfboards
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We Caught Up With Christie Carr, One of the Few Women Shaping Surfboards
We headed to Costa Rica to surf the longest left and test our new summer gear. While we were there, we stopped by Christie Carr’s board shaping studio to watch her work. One of the few women shaping boards by hand - making ’em fast, loose, and fun. She's a yoga teacher, painter, permaculturalist, and serial entrepreneur.
Christie started surfing off Florida’s Gulf Coast at 15, thought she was late to the party. Turns out she rips. For a while, she and her partner helped run The Yoga Farm, cultivating the land and relationships with people from all over. Now they live by the beach in Punta Banco, where Christie makes fast, playful boards by hand.
T9: What are five adjectives your friends would use to describe you?
Christie: Introspective, Kind, Nerdy, Frothy, Creative.
T9: What drew you to surfing? What do you love about it today?
Christie: The Gulf Coast isn’t known for its waves, so surfing didn’t jump out to me as an option when I was a kiddo. I was shocked the first time I saw surfing on TV when I was around 10. “Dad! Why don’t their feet need to be strapped to that board?!” I became obsessed with the idea of surfing around age 14, a couple boys at my school brought their boards to school one day (I have no idea why) and I was so shocked that there were waves to be surfed (barely surfable, in retrospect) just on the other side of my county.
I had always been a fish, but the first wave I caught on a rented board when I was 15 hooked me for life. The feeling of the ocean propelling me along was so much more exciting and pure than getting pulled behind a boat! Everything became crystal clear: This is what I was put on this earth to do! My parents were a little less enthused than I was about this new life path.
I love all the same things now: that exhilarating feeling of the takeoff, watching the water fly by, sitting in the ocean for hours, the feeling of purpose in purposelessness. And then I love some new things, like always finding room to improve, always learning, and needing to stay in shape to stay surfing for as long as possible as I get older.
T9: You’ve said that when you want something new, you tend to make it yourself. Where do you think that instinct comes from? What kinds of things besides surfboards have you made?
Christie: My parents are both very much DIY folks, my mother especially. She weaves; she upholsters; she grows food; she makes bread and yogurt; she makes pots. She got me making art from as soon as I could hold a crayon. So when I was young we were always making things for fun. My dad shared his garage with me and let me use his tools, so I first got into making art out there in high school and then very rustic furniture in college. I really made whatever I could from wood scraps lying around, cast off windows and doors from dumpsters, and his collections of random nails and screws.
As an adult, I’ve made a lot of swimsuits; built a lot of seeding tables, simple garden structures, furniture and light fixtures out of driftwood; made lots of ceramic bowls, plates, and mugs, the tiles for the backsplash of my current kitchen. Together with my hubby, Pat, we’ve built multiple cute rustic cabins and one house for ourselves out of earth (super adobe). And just about every kind of food you can imagine, we’ve tried to make it from its rawest state.
T9: What do you love most about Costa Rica? About The Yoga Farm?
Christie: I love so many things about Costa Rica! I love how people pride themselves on being tranquilo. I love how friendly the culture is on the whole, how in traffic a honk means “hello” or “I’m passing, just so you know” instead of “f— you!”, the way it would in Florida. And, of course, I love the nature. I love the abundance of fresh water. I love the clean air. I love the amount of life on every big tree. I love the beating sun and the pouring rains and the dark skies at night.
When I lived at The Yoga Farm, we don’t live there anymore. We moved to the beach in Banco last May. I loved waking up to the sounds of the jungle. I loved being able to tell what time it was by the cicada din, frog calls, howler monkey roars.
Now I live by the beach surrounded by young fruit trees and friendly neighbors. I absolutely love the town of Punta Banco. The most amazing, humble, capable, and chill people live here. We are a group of maybe 250 people living at the end of the road before it gives way to jungle and empty coastline. People grow and share fruit with each other, fish from the beach, gather crustaceans from the tide pools, care for their plants according to lunar cycles, and enjoy each other’s company. Pat and I feel so so fortunate that this town has taken us in and made us feel loved.
T9: Title Nine is all about women taking risks. What are some of the risks you’ve taken to live the life you do and what are the biggest rewards of those risks?
Christie: Well, we moved to The Yoga Farm sight unseen, so that was a bit of a gamble! Had never been past Pavones, didn’t even know Punta Banco existed until we got the job here! We left the safety and security of our hometown where we had multiple fulfilling jobs and a strong network of likeminded friends, packed one big backpack and one board bag each and got ready for the rest of our lives. We were too young to know how risky this move was, I think! Leaving all we’d known with very little money and few belongings besides some books, raincoats, and too many surfboards.
The rewards have been the ability to live our lives as we choose to live them in a community of people who mostly self govern in an area far from any real government oversight. My former teenage anarchist self would be so proud!
To grow our own delicious food, live close to the land and ocean on our own terms, form bonds with people who live as close to the earth as we do, and just to be able to be fully present and feel fully responsible for whatever our lives look like. If we don’t like the way our lives look and feel, we know we can take a risk and change. The reward and the punishment for taking risks is knowing you are responsible for your own experience if not for the outcome.
T9: Title Nine is also about women in community and women supporting women. What are some of the ways you do that?
Christie: I am fortunate to live in a place filled with interesting, fun, intelligent, active ladies who are excited to live life here and now. Community has happened quite naturally here, all I need to do to support it is to surf with my friends; share gardening techniques and plants; play games; show up to potlucks, kids’ parties, and baby showers; and give lots of big hugs. We share food, fruit, and sunsets. La pura vida!
Contributing T9 Expert
Andie Pine, Sr. Photo Producer
If there's a crew, a camera, and a pile of gear somewhere off the beaten path, there's a good chance Andie helped get it there. As a producer at Title Nine, she spends her days chasing the next great location, collaborating with women who make their lives outdoors, and turning ambitious shoot plans into reality. Originally from New York, she still brings a little East Coast hustle to every production, though she's happiest when the gear is unpacked, the light is good, and the day ends near the water.
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