Jessa WilliamsManhattan Beach, Calif.
Autumn Kitchens grew up between Long Island and Rockaway, N.Y. She started surfing after taking a lesson when she was 15, and she has been surfing and living in the Rockaways for the past seven years.
Nina Stouffer is a self-described “soul surfer” from Jacksonville, Fla. She feels free in the water. “All your worries disappear,” she told me. “And especially with my friends, I always enjoy going out there and being with them, bonding.”
Kimiko Russell-Halterman’s love of the ocean is rooted in her Japanese ancestry. Her grandmother is from Okinawa and believes that one of her ancestors was an ama, a celebrated female free-diver.