Surfer interview: Kristin Wilson

By Nick McGregor

In Drift’s April interview with local wahine J. Lee Driskell, we wrote: “J. Lee is not your typical Roxy blond surfer girl.” And while this month’s interviewee Kristin Wilson is blond, any resemblance to 99% of the female surfing population ends there. Not only is Kristin a seasoned competitor with a prestigious NSSA National title to her name, but she also holds an International Business degree from UCF, lives alone in Nicaragua selling real estate for Century 21, and donates her time to raising money for Costa Rican orphanages and Nicaraguan residents of a trash dump. Living in one of the most wave-rich zones of the globe also allows Kristin to regularly surf bigger, heavier, and scarier waves than many of her mainland brethren – male or female. Drift chatted with Kristin during one of her visits back home about the Pura Vida No Pro, the current economic crisis, and the merits of “Oldest City” tattoos.

Drift: How did you start surfing?

Kristin Wilson: I started surfing when I was 15. My family moved from Vero Beach to St. Augustine when I was 13. I had been a gymnast and a cheerleader my whole life, and then quit gymnastics, but my younger brother Jimmy surfed. He was the one who loaned me his surfboard and taught me how to stand up, down at Mary St. in St. Augustine Beach.

D: How did you get involved surfing competitively?
KW: I didn’t even know that girls entered contests when I first started surfing. But I used to watch that TV show The Radical Side with my brother, and they profiled a local ESA contest in Jax Beach. I saw the girls who were winning, and I thought, “Oh, I could surf better than that!” So I started entering ESA contests, and then doing NSSA once I got to college.

D: Who were some of your influences growing up surfing in St. Augustine?
KW: Jessica Earl was one of my good friends and definitely an inspiration, as well as Izzy Braly. She’s a longboard champion, and we’re still best friends; we actually lived in Australia together. I also went to high school with Gabe Kling and Jody Davis, and they were surfing mentors to me, even if they didn’t know it. And the younger kids too, like Zander Morton, Jeff McNally, Dagen McNally, Jeff Logan – I had my brother’s younger friends and then my older friends. And I’m lucky to still surf with Gabe and Zander on Matix.

D: What other sponsors do you have?
KW: I surf for Podium Distribution, which is DVS and Matix, as well as Electric, Future Fins, Point Conception Bathing Suits, X-Trak, and also Quiet Flight.

D: You won an NSSA Nationals College Women’s title in 2004. How did it feel going up against some of the best amateur competition in the world?
KW: That was really exciting for me, because the NSSA is so high profile and I had just spent a year abroad in Costa Rica and Australia. I was really able to work on my technique, so when I came back home, everything just clicked – I feel like I surf my best when I’m in Florida, around friends and family. A pretty big northeast swell, doubled up and choppy – that’s my favorite kind of surf.

D: How did you end up spending a year abroad?
KW: UCF actually had a study abroad program in Newcastle, Australia, and when that got cancelled, I freaked out and petitioned the Business Department. They opened a new one on the Gold Coast, at Griffith University, so I got to go over there for a semester. I had also applied for a scholarship from the Rotary Foundation, and they sent me to Costa Rica, which happened to line up the semester before I went to Australia.

D: You still surf today on the Association of Latin American Surfing tour. How have you been treated as an ex-pat American?
KW: As a blond-haired blue-eyed girl, I’ve definitely been subject to reverse racism from an ethnocentric perspective. The first ALAS contest I participated in, Lisbeth Vindas, the Costa Rican national champion, tried to have me thrown out for not being born in Latin America, even though I live there and speak fluent Spanish. Luckily all the other locals stuck up for me and said, “Kristin’s been here for years, she should be able to surf!” But when that’s people’s livelihood, they don’t want to see a foreigner who they think has more money or more opportunity come and win the whopping $80 prize that they have for women [laughs].

**FOR THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW, PICK UP DRIFT AT THESE LOCATIONS ACROSS ST. AUGUSTINE.**