Making waves: How one surfer coaxed the ladies of Sri Lanka in to the water

For Tiffany Carothers, it started with a simple idea. She wanted more females in the line-up. The California native had moved to Sri Lanka in 2011 with her family, drawn by the quiet life of Arugam Bay and beautiful waves of Main Point. She noticed that there weren’t any Sri Lankan women in the water, so she started asking her neighbours, Shamali and Inoka Sanjaya, to head into the Indian Ocean with her.

“She'd take me to secret places,” Shamali, 31, remembers. “My buddy didn’t like that I was surfing. He would say: ‘Why are you going surfing? No other girls are surfing. Other girls stay home. Why are you acting just like a boy?’

“Our culture is very different from European culture,” Shamali adds. Her brother objected to her being the only local girl in the water, as he worried about what others would say. That they had lost their parents at a age and he was in charge of caring for his younger siblings. He was also concerned that she wasn’t a strong swimmer, as may be the case with many Sri Lankan women.

Eventually, Carothers gave her neighbours some extra boards. And, with Shamali’s help, she organised a female-only surfing meetup for the bigger neighborhood. She was shocked when 30 women showed up.

“I wasn’t even sure the way the first Girls Make Waves would go,” says Carothers, who has since opened chapters in Hawaii and Mauritius. The goal is to teach basic ocean skills and promote a love of surfing. In A-Bay, the nickname for Arugam Bay, they hold surf events every Monday.

In 2018, Shamali started her own initiative: Arugam Bay Girls’ Surf Club. The pair’s collective efforts have already been profiled in Surfer magazine and broadcast all over the world. “Any problem we've in our life, when we go in to the water, we forget,” Shamali says. “A new happiness comes.”

But things weren’t always straightforward for these erstwhile surfers. Although it became easier for Shamali to surf when she married an area man who supported her love of the activity, there was still a stigma connected with surfing for local women. There may be the perception among many local villagers that western women surf in small bikinis and spend their nights drinking and likely to parties, says Shamali, who thinks people in her community associated the sport with those alternative activities.

Per month after their weekly surf meets began, the women began to be harassed by some men within their community. Therefore for the next 1 . 5 years, they might co-ordinate secret surf meetups - at different breaks or by going on trips south where persons wouldn’t recognise them.

“When it had been scary and we did have to hide, [surfing coach] Tim Jones with the International Surfing Association and Red Bull were encouraging me,” Carothers says. “These were a huge inspiration if you ask me. They will be the big guys in surfing.” As time passes, the surrounding community started to simply accept the women’s love of the activity. “We keep our culture … We will not party or wear a bikini,” Shamali says, pointing out that the ladies “wear nice clothes” if they surf - generally leggings and shirts.

Carothers says: “It’s so much more freeing now to learn that the kinds who were threatening and against it are now organising training so the girls may use surfing to work within the economy.”

On the other side of Sri Lanka, one south coast surfer is fostering an identical future for his daughter. Surf guide and guesthouse proprietor Lucky Laksiri first started surfing the well-known Coconuts break decades ago by himself board, created from wood, fishing line and a bucket. The now crowded line-up was considered a secret spot then.

And so, when his daughter Hiruni, then 12, found him requesting surf training, he couldn’t have already been happier. “She’s the first local girl in the water,” Laksiri says. “It’s best for her.”

Hiruni always loved the water and grew up 50 metres from one of the better breaks on Sri Lanka’s southern coast. Although the waves made her nervous, she knew her dad will be the best coach - he’d been taking her in to the ocean since she was a little child.

I first meet Hiruni after an evening session in the water, carrying my board under my arm. She arises to tell me that she was once the only girl surfer in Sri Lanka. When I ask if she really wants to visit the Olympics, she answers with a resounding ‘yes’.

Hiruni practises every week with her dad, heading a few kilometres south to the beginner-friendly beach break in Weligama. She says a few of her girl friends want but, for the present time, her dad is her biggest ally.

If you look out at the favorite breaks on the south coast and in A-Bay through the surf season, you’ll see huge crowds of beginner surfers bobbing around on neon-blue and yellow foam boards, with an area guy often wearing a bucket hat encouraging them behind the break. But there are no female teachers. Some Sri Lankans see this as a business opportunity.

“No woman gives lessons. I'd like to see that,” Laksiri says. “It could be better for business.” Although he’s been teaching surfing for many years, he believes more tourists would be interested in surfing if they may find female instructors.

On the west coast, Sanjaya similarly hopes that the Arugam Bay Girls’ Surf Club can become an financial hub. “Some girls inside our club say that they don’t have a good job or good money.”

She is working with Australian Aid to invest in International Surf Association training. Along with lessons, she hopes the club may also direct tourists to other local women who offer massages, cookery classes or laundry services.

“Before, women stayed at home working or looking after kids,” Sanjaya says. “Now, we’re given time for our surfing also … they such as this change.”