Eva Thomas|
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The content creator branched out from her life as a fashion influencer to launch surfing retreats – and she’s never been happier. In 2021, I was at a point in my life where I thought I’d lost myself. I’d gone through a bad break-up and my confidence was at a real low. I was left feeling alone and vulnerable, as if I didn’t know who I was anymore. I needed to have constant plans and company, even if just on the phone.
Something had to give. In an attempt to break the cycle and stop being so dependent on others, I decided to go away alone on a solo holiday. I needed to take myself off somewhere without anyone I knew, where I wasn’t working, to figure out what made me happy again. At the time, I was swimming every day, so decided that something water-based might feel more comfortable. That’s when I came across surfing, which is geared around solo travel. I could go on my own, but there was also an option to meet new friends if that’s what I wanted. I ended up going on a surf retreat in Portugal; those two weeks built me back up again. Quite simply, that fortnight changed my life.
“I needed to take myself off somewhere without anyone I knew to figure out what made me happy again”
I fell in love with the peace that surfing brought to my mind, not only by being in the water but also by learning something brand new. I wanted to improve and reach a good level, and that meant really pushing myself. With surfing, you can’t sit and ponder about the hard things happening around you; you have to react to what’s happening in that instant. It gave me freedom. It brought me back to life.
Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t easy – learning to surf and doing it solo was frightening and it was completely unknown. It’s all upper body strength and it takes a lot of balance to stand upright on an uneven surface. Lying on your stomach in front of a tall wave can be daunting. The waves are powerful and water’s heavy. If you fall off, you’re going under and you have to remain calm. I didn’t know how to do that at first; I would flap and become incredibly anxious, which was – at that point – how I responded to any challenges or uncomfortable moments out of the water, too. With time, I learnt how to control my breath and understand how the waves responded to my position in the water. You always resurface; if you’re under water it might feel like minutes, but it’ll take less than a few seconds to re-emerge. It took me ages to become comfortable with that. It’s a good metaphor for life; sometimes the idea of sitting in discomfort and sadness feels almost impossible to us. We think these periods will last forever, but they always pass. We always resurface. The wind will change and we pop up again.
“Surfing is a lesson in expecting the unexpected, and real-time proof that everything will pass”
From there, I made an effort to to travel solo more regularly, and based all those trips around surfing. I flew to LA, Hawaii, Costa Rica and back to Portugal to improve and hone my skills. I started to share my journey of learning something new on Instagram, and found that it was the most engaged my followers had ever been. During my trip to Hawaii, I decided that I wanted to bottle the feeling I had and share it with others. I wanted to provide a surfing community where people could connect, creating an environment that didn’t involve bunk beds or shared bathrooms, where the food was amazing and there was chocolate and wine available if you wanted it. I didn’t want it to be restrictive; it had to be nourishing in whatever way you needed. I launched Marnie Rays in June 2023, providing surfing retreats at different spots around the world, from Cornwall to Portugal. As soon as I came up with the idea I talked about it online immediately, so that I had a hard deadline to work to. Two years later, we’re still going, with wait lists for our retreats. In 2025, we have trips planned in Portugal and Cornwall and further afield in Lombok, Indonesia.
Surfing has taught me so much. The first is patience. It’s important to wait for the right conditions to make an informed decision when going out into the ocean – sometimes going 100 miles per hour is not the best idea. Secondly, the water is unpredictable, and that’s shown me that it isn’t possible to plan or control everything. Surfing is a lesson in expecting the unexpected, and real-time proof that everything will pass. All of us can deal with more than we think we can. It has opened up I how experience joy and brought true contentment back to my life.
“We should always push ourselves to try new things”
Sometimes, we get to an age when sometimes where we think ‘is this it? Am I too old to learn something new?’ We should always push ourselves to try new things. It doesn’t mean you have to be perfect at it; if you enjoy it then it’s worthwhile. We worry that we won’t be good enough, or that we don’t have time; we put all these excuses in front of ourselves. Sometimes as humans we would rather sit and wallow in a bad situation instead of making the big change needed to move forward and find more joy. I don’t think people back themselves enough. Find your bravery – it’s right there inside you. You’ll never regret unlocking it.
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