Daddy’s Surfer Girl
Friday - September 16, 2005
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Del.icio.usAloha, wave riders!
Father Chris Moore tells Carissa to ‘say cheeeese!’
— it works!
Don’t you just love her? Mother Nature cooked up a surprise dish for us all. We thought just because August had lousy, lame surf that summer surfing was over and out. Wrong! There was a “monster down under” ... the strongest Southern Hemisphere storm of the year late last week. This “monster” had hurricane-force winds and seas near 50 feet; it took up most of the Southern-hemi seas. Now it is “we” who get to enjoy goooood, huuuuge south swells a week later - and it is “we” who must never underestimate Mother Nature!
This New Zealand storm “might” take its place in the history books as one of the best swells of the new millennium. By Thursday the 15th - just before the release date for Midweek the Weekend - we should be riding high on 5-8-footers Hawaii Scale Feet (HSF) with “faces” reaching as high as 12-15 feet through Friday! This is not stuff to play around with carelessly. Please know your limits. There’s no shame in watching from the shore. It’s gonna be exciting from any perspective - in the barrel or on the beach!
There’s another thing ... the Boost Mobile Pro! Yep, the Fosters World Tour is scoring hard at Southern California’s Trestles Beach right now. This is event No. 8 - as well as Andy Irons’ and Kelly Slater’s critical contest for the world championship race! Log onto the new version of surfnewsnetwork.com and see what’s up today. What an exciting time to be alive.
Photographer, surfer, swimmer and dad Chris Moore
catches his little girl Carissa flying high!
Hey, I had a chance to catch up with Chris Moore, father of young surfing phenom Carissa Moore. She just became a teen (13) and the new Junior Pro Champion last month. We have lotsa champion athletes right now from Hawaii - lotsa very young ones! Michelle Wie, our Little Leaguers from Ewa Beach ... very cool.
GQ: Aloha, Chris! It seems like Carissa is always smiling. Are you both keeping the love of surfing in first place?
CM: Oh yeah, and that’s a big part of who she is. Really, that’s one of the reasons she has such appeal. Most don’t get to see the half of it - the creativity and fun. If I fast-forward the tape 10 years I hope she’s as happy as she is now.
GQ: Do you or does she discipline herself to get in the water?
CM: If I look at other sports ... the true great athletes ... it’s not driven by anybody else. You know, it’s ultimately driven by the athlete.
GQ: Yes!
CM: I try my best to motivate Carissa and help with certain things. If she’s having trouble with a hard maneuver, I’ll try to get her to the point where she’s like ‘OK, yeah I can do it.‘We’re trying to get her doing some things that, basically, girls don’t do.
GQ: How did you get into it?
CM: I was born at Queen’s and next thing I know my folks bought me a surfboard and made me learn to swim in order to be safe surfing. But the swimming caught on. I really didn’t get into surfing hard ‘til high school.
GQ: And you ended up winning a ton of long-distance rough water events in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s - are you competitive by nature? Carissa sure seems to thrive in it.
CM: Yeah, it’s just natural. You’re with your friends and if you do well, it feels good, and it just goes from there, having fun.
GQ: And winning is fun.
CM: Yeah, but I didn’t dominate the pool events. It was a lot later in the ocean that you figure it out, the currents, etc. Like if you can come in through Kaisers and ride a wave instead of swimming through the channel no one can catch you.
GQ: That’s the way. And looking back?
CM: I look back and it seems like so long ago and so different. Like what I’m doing with Carissa now is way better. Twice as fun!
GQ: Twice as meaningful, too - and I don’t think there’s ever been such a young surf girl with as much notoriety either.
CM: I would have to agree with you.
GQ: Hey, Chris, gotta run, or should I say swim. I’ll catch up with you and Carissa for surf talk a week after all the surf and contests! Good luck to both of you at the NSSA this weekend at Lahaina Harbor, and at the worlds next month.
CM: Thanks, GQ.
That’s a surf wrap.
Thank you for being right here right now! See you in the lineup and back here for surf stories next weekend! Now go ride some waves! Check the new surfnewsnetwork.com! I’m GQ dropping in 4 U!
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