76. 🏄‍♀️ Member Spotlight: How Chey Built Resilience and Confidence in Notoriously Aggressive Santa Cruz Lineups

What does it take to keep showing up—no matter what life throws your way? Chey’s story will leave you inspired. As a mother, a surfer living with MS, and a woman paddling out in Santa Cruz’s notoriously aggressive lineups, she reminds us that strength isn’t about perfection—it’s about choosing joy, resilience, and community.

In this episode of Confessions of a Surf Lady, The First Women’s Surfing Podcast™, I talk with Chey, a Surf Société member whose journey spans from growing up around lakes in Canada to raising a family that surfs together in Mexico and now living in Santa Cruz. Along the way, she’s navigated health challenges, learned how to read the ocean, and discovered the confidence it takes to hold her ground in one of the world’s most aggressive surf lineups.

Chey’s story is a reminder that surfing is layered, personal, and ever-changing. Through The Surf Société, she’s found not just skills and knowledge, but a supportive community of women who celebrate each other’s wins. From reflecting on tough sessions to choosing joy in the lineup, her perspective will inspire you to keep going, keep learning, and keep protecting your stoke.

Main Themes

• Surfing as a Lifelong Journey
  Chey shares her path from early water experiences in Canada to surf trips in Costa Rica and Mexico, and finally finding home in California.
• Confidence in the Lineup
  From Santa Cruz aggression to run-ins with entitled surfers, Chey explains how she’s learned to protect her energy and hold her ground.
  “You can choose to paddle in—you’re not giving into them, you’re protecting your positive experience.”
• The Power of Community and Knowledge
  Chey describes how Surf Société gave her confidence, ocean knowledge, and a sisterhood where everyone’s progress feels like a shared win.

Show Resources

• 🌊 Join our global women’s surf community — The Surf Société — and start your free 7-day trial today → Join Now
  
  
• Learn more first → Surf Société Overview
  
  
• Follow Laura Day → @confessionsofasurflady
  
  
• Follow Surf Société → @surfsociete
  
  
• 🛍 Shop Surf Société → shop.surfsociete.com
  
  

How to Support the Podcast

1. 💙 Support our sponsors – They help keep this show going.
2. 🛍 Shop Surf Société – Support women-centered surfwear and community.
3. ⭐ Leave a Review – Help more women find us on Apple Podcasts & Spotify.
4. 📲 Share this episode – Send it to a surf sister who needs to hear it.

Send me a Message! Be sure to leave your contact info.

Support the show

Confessions of a Surf Lady, women's surfing podcast, is supported by The Surf Société, our unique digital women's surfing platform where we come together to Learn More. Surf Better. Live Happy. Learn more at Surfsociete.com