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Surfing has nearly killed Joan and yet has also saved her life on more than one occasion.

Joan was born in the landlocked state of Kansas with no ocean in sight. But because her mother always had a fond spot for California, the family moved to Capitola in 1964 when Joan was four-years-old. She hasn’t looked back since.

The family settled on Park Avenue and Cabrillo Street, right above New Brighton Beach, close to her maternal grandmother who was living there as well. It was there as a young child that Joan got her first rush of adrenaline that’s induced by tumbling in the foamy beach break: body surfing, skimboarding and riding a surf mat, Joan tried it all.

But it was her older brother, Ralph, who helped her graduate from playing in the waves at New Brighton to catching them at the Capitola Jetty when she was eight-years-old.

“He was a legend, part of the ‘Tola Rats’ gang of surfers that were around back then,” Joan said. “My brother hung out with about 50 surfers from Capitola who all welcomed me and taught me how to surf.”

She was an active kid who needed rigorous physical activity to keep her busy and Ralph aided by teaching her how to skateboard, ride motorcycles and, of course, how to become a great surfer. At first she was surfing on any board Ralph and his friends were lending her, including experimental boards that were mid-length as the shortboard revolution was beginning to take over. She kept finding smaller boards to ride and was surfing up and down Santa Cruz, claiming most of the east side spots as her own.

While Joan, her siblings and friends would spend their long summer days at Capitola Beach, their parents would be enjoying themselves at old establishments like the Edgewater (now Paradise Grill), Max Patio (now Britannia Arms) and at the arcade (now Zelda’s).

“It was awesome growing up, we went to the beach everyday and I just fell in love with the water,” Joan said.

As much as her upbringing reflected the spirit of an idyllic endless summer, Joan’s earliest years in life were also tainted by devastating loss. When she was just six-years-old, she lost her mother to a brain aneurysm that took her life instantly with no warning. At 12, she lost her father to cancer and just six months later her brother, Ralph, died in a motorcycle accident.

“There were four of us left in my family sitting around the kitchen table wondering ‘who is next?” Joan said. “Then I got in this gnarly accident and almost lost my life, too.”

When Joan was 15 she was spending a typical summer day surfing at Santa Mo’s Beach on 22nd street riding her 6’6” swallow tail board with a six-inch fin. She had been out in the water with friends for hours when finally she caught a last wave in.

She took a little slip and fell, and as her board flipped Joan landed squarely on top of the fin. It ripped through her internal organs and the gash from the fin went four-inches deep inside of her, tearing through her springsuit and leading to massive blood loss.

“I had a four hour surgery with three units of blood loss and then a second surgery a month later,” Joan said. “The fin nicked the uterus, cut the bladder and damaged a lot of my muscles. I had to have a temporary colostomy bag and the doctors said they weren’t sure I was going to be able to have kids.”

Never the one to be deterred, Joan knew she had to get back out into the water as soon as she was able. It was in the waves where Joan felt most connected to life around her, it was a place of healing and of peace.

“At that time it was my outlet, it was my escape, and it’s still where I go to get in contact with my higher power,” Joan said.

As Joan recovered and navigated life at Soquel High School, her interests expanded and surfing slid a bit to the back burner. She discovered springboard diving and developed into a highly competitive athlete under coaches who knew how to both mentor her and guide her through life as a teenager with no parents. She won league championships and was scouted by Cabrillo College to compete there for two years before transferring to Hayward to continue competing.

Joan said it was her coaches throughout high school and college that kept her focused and on the right track, that gave her something to work towards when she was lost.

“These coaches were all so great because not only did they know how to coach me, they told me every class to take and guided me in majoring in physical education,” Joan said. “I came out with a bachelor’s in PE and became a diving coach myself.”

After graduating she moved back to Santa Cruz and re-immersed herself into the community. She taught here for 40 years before retiring – at UCSC for 20 years as the diving coach, as the Cabrillo head coach and worked at many of the high schools.

It was during her early years as a diving coach in Santa Cruz that Joan began to find her way back to surfing, but the path back wasn’t easy. She faced a period of difficult years while married to her first husband and raising two kids of her own. At 30, she had her first son and her daughter was born less than two years later.

Joan does not shy away from how tumultuous that period of her life was, full of unhealthy patterns with her ex-husband that slowly infiltrated Joan’s world, too, no matter how hard she tried to resist.

“I was not surfing and the relationship with the children’s father was getting sour and was full of unhealthy behaviors: drugs and alcohol became a problem,” Joan said. “I got in trouble for drinking and driving with two children in the car and it was my second offense, I had a prior offense six years before.”

That was the moment that Joan committed to changing her life. She knew she had to or else she risked losing everything she loved.

“God needs to slap me sometimes,” Joan said with a wise chuckle.

Joan set about getting a divorce and immediately started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She’s been in recovery now for 19 years and still goes to AA meetings every single day – never misses – and takes on the responsibility of sponsoring others who are working to reclaim their lives.

It was during her earliest days of starting to get sober that Joan rediscovered surfing for the first time in 15 years.

“When I was going through the divorce and was two months in recovery my girlfriend said to me, ‘Joan let’s go surfing’, and she got me a wetsuit and board and took me to Jacks,” Joan said. “Before that day I used to sit on the beach drinking a six pack of beer watching everyone, but would never go out in the water. It wasn’t until I realized I needed to get divorced and get sober that I could find surfing again.”

Surfing quickly took hold of Joan’s life again. She started surfing with that same friend three days per week after going to daily AA meetings. At six months sober, her friend took her to Maui to surf and attend AA meetings in paradise.

Around that same time Joan felt she was ready to try competing for the first time. Her first competition: Women on Waves, which held its inaugural event in 2006.

“When I first got back on the board again I felt like a turtle. After quitting drinking beer I lost 10 pounds and with surfing I lost another 10 pounds,” Joan said. “I was loving it so I was like ‘let's do this competition’ and of all places it was at Capitola, where it all started for me.”

Her friends convinced her to compete in the 40s division and she made it to the finals. Joan has now participated in every WOW event since the beginning.

After that first taste of competition, Joan started entering every event up-and-down the coast under the Big Stick Surfing Association. She has been a club member for over two decades and rarely misses a chance to compete as a longboarder.

Joan loves the spirit of competing for many reasons, including keeping her in shape and helping her to become a better surfer. It helps that she almost always finishes in the top two of the finals, so her winning streak is essentially unbroken. She’s currently working on cross-stepping, and has a goal of getting 10 on the nose very soon.

“I am still a couple inches from the nose!” she bemoaned with a smile. “But I am getting a new custom board made for me by Bobby Ledesma, a classic nose rider.”

Joan also competes because it’s given her access to a community who has been with her throughout tough moments in adulthood as well.

She met the love of her life Don Bush in 2010 in a parking lot after an AA meeting and they married in 2015. Together she and Don chased the surf while growing their love. Although Don wasn’t a hardcore surfer like Joan, he so supported Joan in all of her competitions that their weekends largely revolved around her competition schedule. Since the day they met Don was always there with Joan.

“He would get us the nicest hotel rooms right on the beach and in fact our honeymoon was in Hawaii, where I would wake up early to go surfing, then we’d reconnect to go to an AA meeting together and then we’d go to breakfast,” Joan said. “He taught me the meaning of unconditional love.”

Don passed away seven years ago, and it was surfing that saved Joan from tumbling into a dark spiral. At the urging of her loved ones, she went surfing every day in the aftermath of Don’s death, because she said he would’ve wanted her to keep going out in the ocean no matter what.

Joan also never stopped competing since Don’s death, and it’s been through the community of people she’s met at these events that have kept her going amid her grief.

Today while at competitions Joan pays it forward to the next generation of young female surfers who look up to her. She watches their heats and compliments them, and in return they just want to be around Joan.

“I am so attracted to people who love surfing the way I do and the women I meet and compete with at WOW and other events are some of the best people,” Joan said. “These are women of all ages who invite me to travel with them, stay with them during competitions and just be around them, even the younger teenage girls. It’s so incredible to me and makes me so happy.”