We are collaborating with The Ocean is Female to host our first ever virtual fundraiser event! This event gathers together our global groundswell community for a time of documentaries, water women panelists, live music, and giveaways from some of our favorite ocean-loving vendors. Check out some of the panelists you will get a chance to chat with and learn how their intimate relationship with mother ocean through surfing, swimming, and sailing her waves has transformed their lives.
Tap the button below to RSVP for this free event!

Apryl Boyle

Hi! I’m a marine/environmental scientist who specializes in sharks and the founder of El Porto Shark. Our mission is ocean and shark conservation through research, education, and action. I'm also Los Angeles Head Trainer & Scientist for Black Girls Surf and am a newly-minted surf therapy facilitator trainee with Groundswell. I do consult with a few other non-profits on the marketing/strategic side which is where I get to exercise my math/stats love. I'm a Los Angeles native that's been surfing, swimming, scuba diving, boating, sailing, and so much else in the ocean since I was a small child. I'm fortunate that I'm able to blend surfing with conservation and science for work and am now completing my ISA Surf Level 1 Surf Instructor Certification. My research focus breaks down into 1. Shark PR and 2. Chemical Oceanography which feed each other and inform conservation and educational outreach. By engaging the surfing community in data collection - because surfers are all Community Scientists - we take an even deeper ownership of protecting our coasts. The final piece is making the ocean as well as ocean/shark science more accessible to everyone. Everyone. I have a multi-ethnic, multi-coastal background so my connection to the ocean is quite deep as it's the place I truly feel at home.

My favorite water quote:

"No water, no life. No blue, no green" ~Sylvia Earle

follow Apryl and learn more about her work on Intagram: @aprylboyle & @elportoshark

Paula Espejo

I’m a psychologist and have devoted my career to explore human development and evolution, I’m fascinated how we are both able to destroy but more in awe with our potential to create. Through @boldtalk, I work helping companies, teams & executives all around the world to advance their development under a sustainable view that is the same one that made me join the eXXpedition, “we must stop abusing ourselves in order to stop abusing the world around us”.My love for the ocean started since I was very little first as a shell collector, then as a synchro swimmer, skilled diver and during the las 7 years by sailing with my kids and husband.

That’s why I found and accepted the challenge of taking part in the Leg 7 crew for eXXpedition, I absolutely share it’s values and the urgency of acting as a whole force, individual heroic actions won’t get as far since the ocean does not behave under our artificial boundaries.

I’m a mother of 3 and our dream is spend most of our spare time sailing (due to Corona this year we are restrained to do that) and my husband and I hope to retire sailing and raising awareness of the importance of the ocean. Before that happens I’m working with the Navy of my country and scientific experts to make sailing and the ocean available for more people in Chile (we have the larger coastline and paradoxically our sea it’s so rough, cold and so little infrastructure that most of Chileans have not ever meet it closer than the shore)

Alexis Weeks (Cakes)

My name is Alexis Weeks but everyone knows me as Cakes. I am 17 and I just graduated high school in 2020. I’m Native American and I come from the Kumeyaay and Payómkawichum Nations (Indigenous to Southern California.)

I am the former Miss Sycuan Powwow Princess 2018-2019. My connection to the water is very deep as my roots are indigenous to the coast. My ancestors were pushed away from their original land so I feel it’s my job to be there as much as possible so I can make them proud which is why I took up surfing! Still fairly new to it but I’m just happy to be out in the water! Thank you all for this opportunity. Really looking forward to this!”

Jules Jackson

I am a youth athletic coach, the docent at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a Tidepool Interpreter at Birch Aquarium and the Operations and Finance Manager of Groundswell Community Project.

I’ve combined my passion for youth and environmental protection in starting my own NPO Coastal Defenders teaching our future how to defend our coasts by raising equity in environmental protection, STEM & aquatics.

My water connection: As an Indigenous person with African ancestry, I am a water protector. My Indigenous Nation’s name is Nanticoke which means Tidewater People so we’re very similar to the Kumeyaay Nation here. On the African side, we come from West Africa, specifically Casamance, Senegal a beach town filled with palm trees just like here on Kumeyaay land. The Mandika language is infused in our Nanticoke language.

I recently completed a 365 Day Beach Clean to raise awareness about our plastic epidemic and am the founder of Coastal Defenders non-profit.

My Favorite Water Quote: Since it’s Indigenous Heritage Month I wanted to use a water quote opening of a story in our linguistic cousins Lenni Lenape language:

“Na mpuyink èntalawsit manëtu pèxushìkao| A spirit that lived in the water came into her”

Follow Jules and learn more about her work on Instagram: @coastaldefenders @diaryofawaterprotector

Emi Koch

I am a marine social-ecologist, Fulbright-National Geographic Fellow and multimedia storyteller from San Diego, California. I now Iive in Lobitos, Peru (just a bit north from Natalie’s)! About 11 years ago, I used my sponsorship with Billabong as a member of their surf lifestyle team, to start Beyond the Surface, a nonprofit working at the local level in partnership with artisanal fishing villages to build social-ecological resilience. I was in university at the time far from the coast and thought it be a cool opportunity to keep my connection with the ocean alive! If someone had told me that it would become my life path or career, I would have thought it was crazy! But really, ever since, I’ve been working at the local level with remote and marginalized small-scale fishing communities in mainly India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Peru, using water play (surfing, body surfing, SUP, swim, etc), mindfulness, and participatory storytelling as tools to engage youth and their fishing families around marine conservation, climate change adaption, and social-environmental justice. About six year ago, we founded our participatory audiovisual workshops series Coast 2 Coast legally in Peru. Last year, I graduated with my Master’s in Marine Biodiversity & Conservation from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

My water relationship: My father was a San Diego lifeguard and he introduced me to the ocean when I was very little. I gained a deep respect for the sea through his teachings — where rip currents form, how to body surf, etc. He always told me to “never turn your back to the ocean” as a safety precaution but I’ve always kept that in mind as a metaphor for conservation as well! Growing up, I felt like the ocean was always there for me, in that same way, your childhood imaginary friend is a source of companionship. My goal was to become a profesional surfer and I began to compete as a longboard. However, that path is what lead me to surfing as a source for social-ecological change and transformation beyond oneself. I became interested in the ocean connection of others, especially those who directly depend on the ocean for their cash and calories: Small-scale artisanal fishing communities. As a social-ecologist, I study the impact of wild fisheries depletion or scarcity on the wellbeing of artisanal fishing villages.

My favorite water quotes:

“Love is the water of life, jump into this water. When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.””-Rumi

“Thirst drove me down to the water where I drank the Moon’s reflection.”— Rumi

follow Emi Koch and learn more about her work on Intagram: @beyondthesurfaceintl & @coast2coast.movement.

Natalie Fox

I’m a yoga teacher, surf coach and sustainability student; currently living out my van in Portugal. My connection with the ocean began in Cornwall, UK.. on a personal level healing body shame through surfing; and professionally getting to a surfing level where I was one of the first female coaches in Morocco. Surfing continued to empower me (through travel, work, friendships, relationships); and others through teaching women and girls in camps/retreats/outreach in Europe, Central America, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Maldives, NZ etc.

In Morocco (2010) I became aware of the plastic pollution crisis as well as the slaughter/capture of cetaceans; so I joined Surfers Against Sewage, Surfers for Cetaceans and Sea Shepherd - eventually travelling to the Faroes, California and Antarctica on marine conservation and community campaigns. Activism lead me to citizen science, as well as back to University, so after joining leg 1 of eXXpedition in 2019 (how I connected with Natalie Small!) to collect microplastic data in the N. Atlantic I had found my research area. I am now pulling it all together into a phd project which analyses surf breaks as social-ecological systems; and develop a methodology for surfers to become science activists; hoping to encourage a transformation of marine conservation/management which uses networks and feedback loops between users, scientists and policy within the UN’s decade of Ocean Science (working with Surfers for Climate). But it is also a very visceral connection I have to the sea… the documentary Undercurrents portrays it beautifully… fear, joy, anticipation, freedom… I just feel present, aligned and alive when I’m in the waves and I want to help others experience that too! Which is, of course, where Groundswell comes in.

My water connection: I love longboarding; especially cold water on a sunny day, with a long right-hand point break! But I’m happy to just get in the ocean (or even freshwater) these days, any which way.

My favorite water quotes:
“I wondered whether water is a mirror for our darker emotions as much as it is an engine for our happiness. Water quiets all the noise, all the distractions, and connects you to your own thoughts.” -"Blue Mind” by Wallace J Nichols:

"The sea is a strange and beautiful place”- Rachel Carson

follow Natalie Fox and learn more about her work on Intagram: @yogarama_uk and @ecoyogasurf

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