“Davoli: Between the Lines with Surfing’s Radical Daughter,” ran in a 1980 issue of Surfing World. This version has been slightly edited.

Do a lot of girls surf in the United States?

Yeah. Especially in Florida, New Jersey, and California.

In Australia, when girls are really young they seem to try it. but they don't carry on with it.

I think the guys deter them a bit over here.

Does the surf have anything to do with that too?

A lot to do with it. In New Jersey, it’s mostly three-foot, four-foot waves, and really mushy, so it’s easy to learn there, you don’t get scared.

Let’s go back to the attitude of male surfers towards the ladies. 

Guys over here are really aggressive in the water. I think the girls here would like to be with other girls in the water, so that nothing happens to them—I think the feelings of aggression are just too strong for them, it makes them shy away. When I first started [in New Jersey], all the guys were really supportive, they’d come by and pick me up to take me surfing. In fact, a lot of times I get waves back home just because I’m a girl, people would say “Go ahead!” 

Would you prefer there to be more girls surfing, or do you enjoy it as it is now?

I’d prefer it if there were a lot more. It would make it easier on me, being one of the few women surfers in the world right now. Also, as far as the contests go, if there were more girls competing we’d have a much larger purse. Plus we’d have more contests on the schedule—as it is now, we have a contest and then a three-month layoff, then another contest and another layoff. 

Who do you feel are the best women surfers in the world?

Lynne Boyer, Margo Oberg, Rell Sunn, and Jericho Poppler.

And yourself. But we’d better say that. Is there one of those people who’s maybe better than the rest?

What girl surfers have you seen here that have potential? 

Hmmmmm—that girl from Manly Beach, Pam Burridge, is the best I’ve seen so far. The two Henderson sisters are also very good, they’ve got a lot of potential. But Pam seems to really want to get into competing in contests and is doing a lot of traveling whereas the Henderson sisters have got their jobs as school teachers so . . . 

The women here have their own association now, which seems like a really good thing. 

It is, yes, that’s what we’re trying to do with the professional thing too. Every time we surf in a contest alongside the men, theirs is the bigger event and we always get kind of left behind in terms of attention. We don’t want to do that anymore because there are two different ways of surfing; ours is different from theirs.

Well, I think surfing is surfing, but there are different ways to go about it. You can be aggressive and rip the wave apart or you can be smooth and graceful, go fast and have a good time. Women lean towards the latter—they’re more graceful and fluid; they use a minimum of maneuvers to get places. This just suits their body physique.

What’s the most sexist thing that’s happened to you in the surf? 

Probably what happened in Bali. It was about a ten-foot day at Padang and this guy paddled out and dropped in on me, first wave. I asked him not to do it again but on his second wave he did the same thing, and I fell and hit bottom. I got really mad and we started arguing. He sat there and told me all his feelings about women surfers. It was a confrontation, but it didn’t really bother me. It just went in one ear and out the other.

Does that sort of thing happen a lot, where guys drop in because you’re a girl?

No. Usually I go out with an attitude to not take over and get a bunch of waves, I try to be friendly. 

But guys must still take advantage of you?

Oh yeah. At places like Rocky Point, if they see it’s a girl they’ll go anyway. Dropping in doesn’t really worry me, it just shows me where that person’s at.

In the women’s surfing movement, the people who are at the top are protecting this squeaky-clean image, whereas you don’t really try for that.

Well, right now [the women's pro tour] is not really that big of a thing, and until it is, I can't see myself dedicating all my time to it. I mean, I’m not going to waste a whole year working on image just for a few contests. I just like to go out and have a good time. Maybe in the future when it does get bigger I’ll settle down (Laughs). Probably that’s why I haven’t done as well as I could have in competition over the last four years because I haven’t taken it as seriously as I could have. Maybe I didn't want to be a champion because I knew I wasn’t ready; I was too busy having a good time. It’s hit my mind lately that it’s kind of now or never because people will start to lose interest in my surfing.

Margo's a Christian so it’s against her religion to go out and do anything radical. I think Lynne has been doing a very good job of covering up. (Laughs). Me, I’m not going to change my lifestyle to suit the contests.

You seem to really enjoy the traveling side of surfing. 

Yes, very much. Right now I’ve got two round-trip tickets to Bali so I'll be there in September and again next May.

A lot of people think you live in Hawaii, is that true?

No. In fact, I spend as much time in Australia as I do in Hawaii. In the future, I plan on spending even less time in Hawaii because I’ve found better waves and less crowds and a much better vibe situation in Indonesia. You can’t relax and enjoy yourself in Hawaii. My new Hawaii is going to be Indonesia.

Do you think your surfing improved a lot from surfing in Hawaii?

Definitely—but I think it's improved even more from surfing in Indonesia. In Hawaii, I’d gotten into a thing where I’d just fall off and wouldn’t really care, but in Indonesia you don’t do that because the reefs are too radical, so I was staying on my board a lot more! 

You’ve spent a lot of time in Australia, whereas most of the other girls come for the contests and then buzz off. Why do you stay longer?

I just really like it here. I love exploring new surf breaks and even though this is my fifth time here there are a lot of places that I haven’t been to yet. Also, this area here on the Northern Beaches [of Sydney] reminds me a lot of my hometown [Brigantine, New Jersey] and a lot of the people are almost like duplicates of my friends back home, so I have a really good time here. 

There’s quite a few, but they’re afraid to go in contests.

Does that have anything to do with the traditional Japanese view towards women?

I just think that the way the American girls have been built up as super surfers in the magazines over there has made the Japanese girls afraid to compete against us. They’ve never seen us surf, but they’ve read about us. So that’s really a shame. I think it’ll take time to change that.

Let's talk about Bali. How many times have you been? 

Twice. I was there for six weeks last year and we surfed Uluwatu every day.

On this last trip you met up with a film crew and ended up going with them to Grajagan. How did that come about?

One day I was surfing at Ulu and Ricky Rasmussen shows up, which was kind of a surprise. I said “What are you doing here?” And he explained that they were doing a segment for 

, and they were going to Java. Then he said he could maybe get me onto the crew, and that’s happened. It was like, “We’re going to Java in two hours, if you want to come, be ready.” I was there in an hour! As it turned out, I got a main part in the thing. It was me, Ricky, and Greg Harrison, an American actor. Everything turned out really good. Especially for me! At the time I didn’t have any money and they fixed me up with a couple thousand dollars and a plane ticket.

I think it's viewed in something like 36 countries, and back home it’s on during prime time on the weekends, so yeah! 

What sort of place is Grajagan? How do you even get there? 

First, it’s a four-hour drive to the northwestern tip of Bali. Then a 45-minute ferry ride, followed by another four-hour drive to the town of Grajagan. Then you catch one of the little fishing boats to get across this huge bay. They drop you off, and once you’re there, you’re there. It’s on the point down at the bottom of Java, the southernmost point, and the wave breaks on a reef that runs for about a mile and a half. You can actually see waves breaking even further up around the bend, it probably breaks for two miles, who knows? It’s just amazing!

It’s this little camp, built into the jungle at the edge of a national game reserve. This guy named Mike Boyum set it up, as a surf camp, with the Indonesian government. He only allows seven people at a time to go and it costs $25 a day, which includes two meals, they’ve got sheets, blankets and all other provisions for you. The place has about six guys who stay on to keep things tidy, do the cooking and laundry, plus there’s a masseuse. They really take good care of you when you’re there. 

Does it benefit the Balinese surfers at all?

No, they’re all afraid of it. Most of the surfers in Bali are even afraid to go out to Uluwatu. When they had the contest there, it must have been dead low tide and all the Balinese kids were getting injured, one of them got hurt really bad. So as far as Java goes, they don't even want to hear about it, they’re mostly content with the beachbreaks. The other thing of course is that they believe that evil spirits lurk in the ocean so it’s an amazing thing that these young Indonesians even go into the ocean in the first place. They’ve got a natural fear of the ocean itself to begin with, never mind big waves.

Tell me more about the camp at Grajagan. 

There are three little houses. One is the sleeping quarters, it sleeps about eight people. Then there’s a big bamboo roof with a couple of picnic tables inside, which is where you eat and stay out of the sun. And then there’s a treehouse that sleeps about four people. That’s it. At high tide you’re just stuck in this little area, because the water comes almost up to the camp itself, and just behind the camp on the other side is the thickest, densest jungle you could ever imagine. At low tide, the water goes out so far, almost half a mile, and the whole reef comes up dry so you can go exploring the rocks that you’re riding over at high tide.

We had twelve people, and that was great, otherwise it would have been real boring when there were no waves.

Are there any other countries you’re keen to visit?

I’d really like to go to South Africa but every time it comes around I don’t have any money left and I’m headed back home to find a job.

How do you get the money to do all this traveling, anyway?

I usually get a waitressing job back home, and I also give surfing lessons.

Down in front of my house. I live on a little island just north of Atlantic City. It's a summer resort, so during the warm months its just mobbed and in the winter it’s a ghost town 

I remember Midget Farrelly telling us that one day the beach is packed and the next day the season is over and it's deserted.

That’s right, on Labor Day everyone gets their last day at the beach and then the next day it’s over. Then the same in reverse on Memorial Day, the day before no one’s around, then they all drive in at once. It’s mayhem from June 27th until September 3rd, that's the season. It’s nice in September because all the tourists have gone but it’s still warm.

I do, Yeah. I've been away for six months now, and before that I was home  for just two weeks, and before that I was away for another six months. It gets to you after a while, living out of a suitcase and moving around so much. I’ve decided I’ve had enough of it right now, so I just want to go home. Then I’ll recharge for next year.

So after a few months you’ll be off to Hawaii?

Yeah, but the plan is to go back to Indonesia before Hawaii, to get in really good shape. I’m only going to be in Hawaii for the contest season this year, then I’ll be going skiing in January and February in California with Lynne Boyer and Debbie Beachem.

How do you think the women’s competition thing is going? is it gaining any momentum, or not? 

I don't know. Over the last couple of years it has become stagnant. But we’ll see. In Bali, I went in a contest against the guys and got 17th place out of, say, 70 surfers. So that convinced them to have a women's contest next year. Also the people from the Coke event here in Australia said they were going to have a women’s division next year. That would be good. This year they called the women’s part of the Coke off, and when I got in touch the reply was, “Girls can't surf and they're a waste of time.” 

So you entered the Trials event in Bali, which was all men. 

A few of us did, yeah. I had this attitude of “Well I'm going to show these guys that we 

 surf,” and it was really good that I did well. 

You made it through the first round, which is hard, those trials events sometimes are more loaded than the main event! Margo got through, too. And Sharon Holland missed out by just a half point.

Yeah. I made history by making it into the man-on-woman heat during the Bali contest.

You're sponsored by Terry Fitzgerald’s Hot Buttered Surfboards. Is that unusual, being an American surfer with an Australian sponsor? Do you have any other sponsors?

Yeah, I have another Australian sponsor, Rip Curl. And a lot of people ask me “Why don’t you get an American sponsor?” But Hot Buttered boards are made in California, too, and Terry’s other products will all be over there next year so I think that’s really good for me because I’ve been with the company so long; it should open up good things for me when they move into America. Right now, when I’m back home, I handle the East Coast distribution of the boards.

Are you proud of the fact that you‘re on a surf team with Derek Hynd and Stew Wilson and the rest?

Yeah, they’re really a good crew of guys, they’re good to me and I’m happy where I’m at, for sure. With Terry at the head, given all his plans and ideas, in two years from now I think Hot Buttered is going to be even hotter than it is now. Look at what happened at Bells, our team got a first, a second, and two thirds. People ask me “You have an Australian sponsor, with the supposed feeling of Australian men towards females, how do you do it?” But the Hot Buttered guys treat me like everybody else, as an equal. So here I am with a sponsor from a different country, and I’m the only girl on the team, and it’s the best thing that’s happened to me as a professional.

I’ll always be a surfer to some extent but as far as the competition bit, I don’t know. I’ll give it another three years and see how it goes. This year I’m going to try harder. Like, I've never trained before, but this time I will, and I’ll try to get a good game plan going before the season begins because I feel like I'm finally ready to be #1.

[Photos: Jeff Divine, Steve Sakamoto, Laurie McGinnis]

Linda Davoli

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