Miles Away

The road through Kailua is long and winding.  I pass Kalaheo High School, an algae river, and numerous chickens before finally turning into the driveway of a breezy, tree lined house.  Jenefer Miles’ home is large, and accommodates an old table and bench set in the front yard.  Various styles of boards litter the sideways next to miniature palms–some red, some yellow, some multicolored, some single finned, all with “liquid soul surfer” written on top. It’s what you would expect from a Kailua surfer girl. In the midst of this country melee stands Miles; tanned skin, black gauchos and a red bikini top, tattoos blazing. She smiles and greets me with that traditional Hawaiian-style kiss on the cheek.  The wind rustles her long dirty-blonde hair as she leads me barefoot into the bottom portion of the house which she calls home.  The inside of her dwelling is not unexpected—there are honu trinkets, pictures of Bob Marley, waves, and boards line the wooden walls.   A ukulele and a guitar rest languidly against the table next to empty bottles of wine Miles admits to collecting.   After blocking the door with a body board (so that Huli the Chicken can’t get in and “crap on the carpet”), Jen and I sit cozily back on the couch.  She is a true Kailua wahine, born and raised and bred on waves.  Perhaps this very type of salt-water upbringing is what propels her into a profession that enables her to experience ultimate rides. “My goal is to make boards that will be fun to ride.  I’ll try a board out at a surf spot, and if it doesn’t give the ride I want, I’ll come back to my shop and look through my templates and make a board that I think will be fun.”

After listening to Lucky Dube and War drone their last verses, we head barefoot through the backyard into the green “scrap shack” where the magic takes place.  The floor is lined with wood shavings and foam particles and makes a thick white carpet for our feet to shuffle through.  A retro style board with a fish tail in its early phases of birth that Miles is currently making for Da Hui, is propped on wooden prongs.   She turns on a light bulb in the middle of the room and glides her hand lovingly over the surface of the bottom of the board to demonstrate the smoothness. “This is to check for bumps,” she said. She shows me the templates hanging on the walls of different sizes and shapes of boards she has made or plans to make in the future.  I take a chair, Jen a barrel, and we begin to talk about waves and their place in our lives. Miles’s childhood is caressed by the saltwater near her home.  She grew up sand sliding before body boarding.  Sand sliding consists of throwing out a small board on the sand when the tide comes in and riding the shore break. When she and her friends finally got cars in high school, they were able to ditch the body board-packing on the bus and take out surfboards to the North Shore.  I laugh at this comment, knowing only a resolute surfer would decide to pack a body board on a bus ride from Kailua to the North Shore.  It was then Jen discovered her love for long boarding.  Hence, in determination and ingenuity, Jen decided to make her very first board which was later named “Spanky.” “I needed a long board that moved like a short board.  I kept breaking them,” smiles Jen.

Since that spawning there has come many, many different styles and designs of boards, some of which are given away, some sold, and some kept for herself.   In her quest to shape the “funnest” board possible, Miles has blended the styles of the man who taught her to shape, Charlie Wong, and her favorite shaper, Casey Rapoza.  Her boards tend to take on a retro style, and depending on her mood Jen will either design a single-colored board or create “liquid splashing”—a style in which the colors will swirl, but are not blended.  Each board has her logo on it—“liquid soul surfer.”  She hopes to start a clothing line to accompany the boards that will feature her logo on shirts and other paraphernalia. Her love for the water extends beyond simply surfing the waves; one of her favorite past times is sailing at night. “The stars are just so bright, and there are so many of them.  Shooting stars look red out on the ocean.”  Miles has also traveled to Tahiti to surf, where she got her leg tattoo that depicts a journey with protection.  She’s been to Costa Rica and California as well and admits that surfing in places around the world is a treat.  Besides the tat on her leg, Miles also has a tattoo trailing from her shoulder, down her side to her hip, of mystical swells, waves, and protection.  She looks at her foot, which says “No Memory” and laughs.

“This tattoo I got to forget the past.  But whenever I look at it, I remember.”  She leans back and sighs.  It’s easy to imagine that this country girl would find drama to be the lowest form of human creation. “I hate intoxicating my mind with chaos.  I love just cruising,” she said.  She loves the ocean.  She hates the inner city.  And sharks, ironically enough, scare her to death.  Her last tattoo is one on her lower back (“Never get a tat in high school,” she says sheepishly) of a honu, or turtle. Driven people with similar interests inspire Miles and she talks freely about being able to do anything possible with the conjoined efforts of women working together. “There’s so much we can accomplish.”   One of her current projects is a surf meet with other women and keiki boys and girls.  Women would compete in teams rather than alone and would win prizes and enjoy each other’s company, not to mention network.  Check out her website at jmilesurfboards.com for more info on current projects the entrepreneur is working on.  Miles vision of the future is as broad as the ocean, and she offers pieces of her liquid soul up to each of us to reach those ultimate rides in the waves that pulse through our life.

-Jennifer Freas