Michael Nagle
A group of female entrepreneurs is making waves at Rockaway Beach.
Whether it is 5 a.m. or 5 p.m., snowing or insufferably hot, the women bosses set out to catch some waves at the Queens beach while juggling business responsibilities.
Surfer Tracy Obolsky, chef and owner of the local Rockaway Beach Bakery, said she tries to write her schedule “around the surf forecast.” But, she added, “You can’t really plan to go surfing whenever you want. The conditions have to be right and the stars need to align and you just have to go when the opportunity arises.”
Like running a business, surfing requires discipline, patience, persistence, good communication skills and the ability to take responsibility for oneself.
“Everyone wants to catch that wave,” said Anya Ferring, owner of online clothing company ARTbutt who also runs Manhattan-based design-consulting business The Factory 8. “You have to have a spirit of community and communication.”
And that applies to her work.
“We need to communicate with our clients and vendors,” Ferring, 43, said. “We need to be courteous. We need to follow codes of respect and honor in how we do business.”
Obolsky, like other female business owners who surf, said she finds respite in the water.
“For me, you have to be present when you’re there,” Obolsky, 41, said. “I’m not thinking about payroll or ordering anything. For some reason I can turn my brain off in the water and have a moment to myself.”
Similarly, Obolsky’s friend Claire Canfield, co-owner of Bloom Beauty Lounge in Chelsea, said she loves surfing because it’s an opportunity to be “fully present.”
“When you’re surfing you can’t think about anything else because there are finite waves,” Canfield, 39, said.
Floral designer Amy Febinger, 48, also a pal of Obolsky’s, said as a Type-A personality she couldn’t tolerate sticking with anything she couldn’t master right away until she surfed.
“If you want the best wave you sometimes have to be really patient for that,” she said. “That’s given me patience in other areas of my life.”
Like running a business, surfing “isn’t easy,” said Mylene Alcayaga, 30, co-owner of plant shop Santokki Studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, who surfs with Canfield. “Every day there’s something different.” Still, she too called it “really meditative.”
Event planner Stacy Snyder of Stacy Danielle Studio said surfing is a “spiritual exercise” that is about the journey and the destination.
“Like executing a well-planned event, catching a wave is the exhilarating part,” Snyder, 39, said. “That’s the destination. The part that teaches me the most, however, is everything else leading up to that. That’s the journey.”
She added, “The journey gives the destination meaning. The destination gives the journey purpose.”