Saturday, September 5, 2026
By Brian Tress | Outer Banks Voice on August 13, 2026
They arrived at 9 a.m. at the Bleriot Street beach access in Kitty Hawk for that first lesson in June not sure what to expect. In a burst of enthusiasm, most of the group had purchased their own boards in advance, but the instructors from the Secret Spot Surf Shop — Leanne Jones, Jake Throne and Miles McCall — suggested the longer, wider beginner boards they had brought with them from the shop. Excitement on their faces could not fully mask minor trepidation.
This group of students is rare on the Outer Banks — five first-timers ranging in age from 46 to 61, all full-time residents. According to Throne, who manages Secret Spot, about 80 percent of his students are either kids or young adults. Jones, owner of the shop, said, “I’ve never had local adults do this as a group. I think it’s awesome.” The group also exhibited a commitment rarely seen by the instructors, having signed up for 10 lessons. McCall said most of his students take a single lesson and move on. “I teach a lot of tourists — one time, one and done,” he said.
The conditions for that first lesson in June — the water and air temp in the high 70s, no-to-low current, and moderate three-foot waves breaking well offshore — were perfect for beginners. The lesson began on land, instructors demonstrating the technique for “popping up” — a term that would be emblazoned in the students’ memories over the coming months. Lying flat on the board, they moved from a push-up position to standing up in one fluid motion, no kneeling in an interim step. If the students were able to master this, the instructors said, the rest — balancing and proper stance — would fall into place.
As it turned out, every one of the students managed to stand up that first day and ride into shore. “You feel the wave catch, you pop up, the board brings you all the way in — you can feel it click,” said Jeff Huff, a 46-year-old IT contractor who lives in Collington. “It feels amazing.”
The group quickly learned what the instructors already knew — no two days on the ocean are the same. “Every day’s different. You can’t get bored of it, because each day you learn something new,” McCall said. In the second lesson, conditions were indeed different, mainly due to the waves breaking in shallow water due to low tide. One member of the group jammed his finger in the sandbar and tore a tendon in his pinky — an injury known as a mallet finger — resulting in a two-week break from the lessons.
During the next lesson, the group watched a bluefish leap out of the water directly in front of them — a long spear of scales glistening blue and silver in the sunlight — in hot pursuit of a school of frantic bait fish. Later in the lesson, Erin Porter, a 46-year-old fraud investigator and Southern Shores resident, injured her wrist as a rogue wave yanked the board away from her as she tried to hold onto the leash. A visit to urgent care indicated it was sprained.
“As beginners, injuries are typical,” Jones said. “The sandbar, not knowing the way the surfboard is gonna come back — and on top of it, these guys aren’t kids.” Still, she said, that’s part of what makes it work. “If there’s not any risk,” Throne noted, “what makes it fun?”
The following week, Porter was back, undeterred, for another lesson. “I refused to let it end my surfing career,” she said. “I was motivated from the beginning to do something that’s way out of my comfort zone.” She babied the wrist while it healed, but otherwise came away with a new appreciation for how physical the sport is — and for what her body could still do at 46.
As the team paddled further off-shore, several students noticed something large moving under the clear water a few feet away from them; they realized what it was at the same moment McCall yelled, “Dolphins!”
For Huff, it was a highlight of the entire surfing experience. “I was a few feet away from these huge animals — three feet from a wild dolphin,” he said. “It changed my relationship with the ocean. It’s a transcendent experience.”
Liesl McLemore, 59, a retired marketing executive living in KDH, was equally struck. “It was just unbelievable that they were so close to us,” she said. “The instructors had to call us back in because we were so enthralled by it.”
McLemore signed up for these lessons for “the challenge, and to really embrace the lifestyle here — being out in the water, embracing the water, is why we moved here.” Her husband Blake, a 61-year-old retired IT professional who is also in the group, has already gotten there. “You do get in touch with the power of that moving water,” he said. “You are trying to work with it instead of fighting it — you are participating with this power.”
By the halfway point of the lessons, the students’ self-assessments were a mix of pride and humility. Porter noted challenges, but said it’s getting easier with each lesson. Liesl said that the lessons have humbled her sense of her own athleticism, while Blake emphasized an acute awareness of the muscles he has used after 90 minutes of surfing. Huff called his own progress “indeterminate.” From here, he said, it’s about building muscle memory and finding balance: “I know that if I am gonna get out there, I’m gonna progress.”
All of them expect to be riding by the final lesson, more or less consistently, and are ready to keep going on their own after the course ends.
The instructors have watched all of it from the water, and like what they see heading into the back half of the course. “I’ve definitely seen some solid improvement,” McCall said. “And they’ve exceeded expectations in perseverance — I didn’t think everyone would stick with it, especially after the injuries.” His goal for the final five lessons is to get them catching their own waves and riding them in “90 percent of the time.”
Thorne believes the group has moved past needing to think through each step. Once the fundamentals sink in, he said, surfing stops being about conscious technique and becomes about flow — instinct takes over so the surfer and board move as one. “I think they have enough knowledge now to go out and have fun,” he observed.
For Jones, who started surfing at age 11 and is now 43, the value of what this group is doing goes well beyond learning a new sport. “There is nothing like it in the world, period,” she said. “Conditions can change completely in an hour. It’s humbling, and it challenges you in different ways. It also helps you want to be healthier. Whatever you believe in, you can’t sit in the ocean and not be in awe. The fact that you can go out there any time — how can you not be grateful?”
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