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JUL/AUG 2019
WE WILL FEEL JOY AGAIN|
AN OCEAN STORY
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“EVERYONE SHARES THE SOULFUL RIGHTEOUS CONNECTION
TO WATER THAT NO WORDS CAN CAPTURE, NOR NEED TO”
BY JEN KJELLESVIK
Jasmine River started whitewater SUPing two years ago. She fell in love with prone pad-
dling last year & raced her 12’ prone board at all the local SUP races. At 11 years old, it
had been far too long for her to wait to finally start surfing the ocean.
Most skills in water sports transfer.
Through the shallow, rocky sections of the McKenzie, N. Umpqua, and Upper and Lower
Deschutes Rivers that we SUP together, we have gotten pro at ‘sprawl when you fall’. In
the shallow reef breaks of Maui, we naturally ‘starfish’ off the back, as in surfing, as the
ocean waves push our boards forward.
Shallow wipe-out skills, we happily discovered, transferred nicely;
We are used to paddling short-fin boards from our preferred form of SUP in whitewater.
I have SUP’d finless for years, inventing my own ‘reverse J-stroke’, opposite of guiding
paddle rafts for decades, coupled with the short opportunity in rapids to get a good ‘catch’
or ‘purchase’ from my 10-15 degree beveled outrigger blade, that the sport of SUP
adopted.
The original SUP blade is an outrigger canoe blade.
17 years ago I was poached off of the raft I guided by a customer who invited me to try
outrigger paddling. I never stopped. This is the reason I was in Maui with my 11-year-old
daughter. My son was overseas for a year, working and playing Rugby in New Zealand.
My husband travels constantly for work. We had just raised our son and I wanted to take
our daughter on a travel experience before her busy high school life took over.
5 years ago I created a youth paddle team in Bend (The Bend Youth Brigade);
I wanted to share my life long passion and profession of water sports while creating a
job I love that I can do with my kids when they are out of school all summer. My son, then
fifteen years old, was my first coach. His extensive multi-sport background and natural
abilities on the water brought a stoke to the younger kids that no adult can replicate. His
best friend at the time was a champion water polo player and surfer who became my
second coach. Kids coaching kids, aka ‘playing’, is the most powerful way to teach a sport,
in my opinion. I pass on water safety and river skills, paddle lessons, and allow free time
in every session for kids to play. Play is our first language; it is how we learn best and how
we enter the ‘flow state’. Running rivers, ocean sports, rugby, volleyball and practically any
sport our family does, takes us around the world. “Growing World Paddlers” is our tagline,
so naturally I created a youth paddle exchange program with an outrigger team from Ha-
waii. We hosted 30 teenagers and coaches from Maui during the great eclipse in Bend,
and they returned the favor to host us.
Jasi and I were welcomed with pure Aloha to our winter home in Maui with a Luau, a
blessing by a tribal elder and instant surf and paddle mates! This mother-daughter adven-
“I WANTED TO SHARE MY LIFE LONG PASSION AND PROFESSION OF WATER SPORTS WHILE
CREATING A JOB I LOVE THAT I CAN DO WITH MY KIDS WHEN THEY ARE OUT OF SCHOOL
ALL SUMMER”
ture was perfect for two mermaids like us!
The leash on our surfboards is always the length of the board and straight;
You don’t want your hard shell board sling-shotting back at you! On the river our leash is
the opposite. It is coiled and up on our boards, to avoid snagging on rocks. You WANT to
get back on your board ASAP to avoid hitting rocks and other pain continuous rapids can
inflict.
Our whitewater boards are inflatable and we wear helmets, so a smash in the face from
an inflatable is preferred to gashed shins, or a rock to the ribs as I painfully decided years
ago!
As we surf and SUP daily in Maui, I homeschooled my daughter (a new adventure in
itself) with help from an incredible island homeschool community. Six nights a week were
devoted to her fantastic club volleyball team and being the minority was refreshing. Her
coaches told her she was a ‘Polynesian girl in a white girl’s body’.
Hawaii has always been our second home and trips get longer and longer as we en-
tertain a permanent move there. On weekends, Jasi’s older brother, Haakon, would be
playing rugby on the island of New Zealand while she played volleyball on the island of
Maui. These close and only siblings lives were still in sync! Something only a parent would
happily notice, as we encourage our kids to travel as much as possible, while remaining
close as a family.
In Maui this winter, I taught SUP lessons on Napili Bay, repaired boards and delivered
boards around the island on days my friends could watch Jasi. We had our pick of end-
less surf and SUP boards from the shop I worked at. I would roll up to pick up my little
girl after work with new boards on the rack and pleadings from her to head straight to the
ocean!
We compared the “personality” of different wave breaks to different rivers we ran back
home. Like our river tribe, the Hawaiian surf scene was pure ‘aloha’ for beginners. Every-
one shares the soulful righteous connection to water that no words can capture, nor need
to. It is heard in the hoots, cheers and purely stoked “CheeHoo’s!” ringing through great
surf sessions. “Addicted” is a light way to describe how Jasi and I feel about surfing. We
are obsessed!
Jasi and I spent hours on the phone with her brother, my son, listening to his surf adven-
tures in Australia, New Zealand and Bali. He shared vital information with his little sister,
like how to get out of a rip or pick the best board. We swapped surf stories for months!
Reading ocean waves to us is totally foreign;
Unlike the rivers we have all grown up on. Rivers are predictable. Once you earn enough
river miles and some years on different whitewater, you can show up to any river in the
world and pick your line. Surfing is clearly a hard-earned sport, like wrestling. You can be
athletically gifted, super fit and have insane work ethic, but you still have to pay your dues
to advance in wrestling. I decided surfing is the same way, learning to understand ocean
waves is an art that takes years. This is exactly why our family is obsessed with surfing. It
is earned. Waves have traveled thousands of miles and no two are exactly alike. You are
riding the most powerful force in nature!!!
The pain of loss;
Likewise, comes in waves exactly like the ocean. You do not know exactly when or where
a wave will break your first time. As you get familiar with these waves of pain, you make
a decision to ride it or not. Mostly depending on where you are when one breaks. Grief
happens unpredictably. I lost my mother to a longtime health battle two months before we
flew out.
My little girl tragically lost her life-long best friend a month before we flew to Hawaii.
Over the following five months, we would lose an uncle, a cousin and my brother-in-law
who died in May after summiting Mt. Everest, his seventh and final peak of the seven
summits. Our family has never experienced so much death of loved ones in such a short
amount of time.
Parenting your eleven year-old child who loses not just her best friend, but her
soul mate, is something indescribable to experience;
Yet I knew exactly how to help her. We had planned our girls surf trip before this tragedy,
but now our time together in the ocean meant much more; it was a powerful gift. Since
babyhood, when my kids were out of sorts, I took them to the water. Like my husband and
I, the water heals our children every time. My husband and I met 20 years ago guiding in
Colorado for the same rafting company. He proposed to me on a river trip the following
summer and a few months later we got married in Nepal, while running rivers there.
Water is the core of our family;
I find it beautifully intentional that salt water in particular is the exact salinity of our blood.
We are born and raised a mountain family, but each time we get to the ocean, we all feel
at home.
There were few, if any words spoken about our losses while my little girl and I wintered in
Hawaii. There did not need to be. One look at each other told us all we need to know.
Running under the full moon one night at camp Olowalu, my little girl took my hand and
told me I was her best friend, ever. I will cherish this moment forever. The first time I saw
her when she was born, I turned to me husband and said: “I know her”. Our family is my
greatest blessing.
Some days in Maui, my little girl could not get out of bed, even to surf;
Her cry is older now. A song would play on the way to volleyball practice in Wailuku and
the grief would consume her. She held me close at my mother’s funeral and gave me
courage to deliver my talk. A month later, I held her tight at her best friend’s funeral as
hundreds of people cried and celebrated her amazing best friend. The ocean spoke to
us in ways nothing else could. Every day in the water our spirits were soothed, our minds
safe to process and our hearts washed and healed with warm salt water. We will never be
the same, but we will feel joy again. The ocean showed us how.
“THE OCEAN IS ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS”
- JASI RIVER KJELLESVIK
Our last day in Maui we drove past our favorite surf spots;
We stopped to stand in the ocean one last time. We said goodbye to the great blue, trying
to capture its healing, powerful, happy energy for our long dry days ahead on land. One
sentence was spoken in that moment by my little girl. Her beautiful 11-year-old soul
spoke from deep in her heart, as she said: “The Ocean is one of my best friends.”