Braidyn Cunningham is 15 years old.
Surfing wasn’t really ever a conscious decision for her. Her dad was a prolific surfer in his own right, and passed on the passion and love of surfing to his six children. Braidyn, the second-youngest of those six, picked up surfing early and quickly.
“Every time they’d go surfing, I’d be on the boogie board,” Braidyn said. “But then I got kind of tired of that, so I tried standing up on it. Then my dad told me that he saw potential in me, so then I started really surfing, and I liked it more than pretty much anyone in my family, so I kind of took it to a new level. Now I’m traveling everywhere, and it’s really becoming a career.”
Born and raised in Jacksonville, minutes from the beach, Braidyn has perfected her craft over the years, but with consequences to her schedule.
“I go surfing as much as I can,” she said. “If the waves are small, I just stay home and do schoolwork all day so I can maybe surf tomorrow. I just get up, check the surf report; if it’s good, you go for a few hours, if it’s bad you just stay home and work. Especially living in Jacksonville, you have to surf every time you can in order to practice enough to keep up.”
She’s also had to give up a lot of things that normal teenagers can sometimes take for granted.
“When I went to public school, I got to socialize and made a lot of friends,” she said. “But now I’ve lost touch with all of them. I miss going to school, because I don’t like sitting in front of a computer screen doing online school all day.”
However, Jacksonville is not the only place that she practices her surfing prowess.
“I’ve been to Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Hawaii; it’s a pretty long list,” she said. “Every place I go, it feels like a totally different world almost. I meet new people, and I get this new experience that I could never get in the U.S.; it’s really awesome. There’s this place called Marbella in Costa Rica, and it’s my favorite break by far. It’s like a perfect right and left, and it runs forever and you can do whatever you want on it.”
You don’t go surf those places if you aren’t talented. There are serious risks involved, and sometimes even seasoned veterans have scary situations.
“She was about 12 when she had a long hold down underwater,” her mom said. “It was a hurricane; it was scary, dark, and gloomy. And you can’t find the top of the water, can’t find the bottom, if you’re facing up or down.
“And then there’s the sharks, almost every session,” Braidyn said. “One time my friend got bit by a shark. Other than that, they’re not really that scary.”
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However, as she has done her whole career in surfing, she rode the wave and came out on top.
“It was tough for her for a good year in certain conditions, she would just shut down. Mentally, it took a long time for her to recover from,” her mom said. “But she’s definitely recovered, she’s fine now.”
Braidyn’s talent may come as a bit of an understatement.
“Last year I was on the developmental U.S. Team,” she said. “This year, I’m trying to get on the official team. In 2020, the Olympics are going to add surfing, so that’s basically the Olympic team. Obviously it’s really hard, but I might have a chance to win a gold medal. I also won the Surfing America East Coast in the overall under-16 division.”
Braidyn is also very smart. She knows her dreams are big, so she also has smaller, long-term goals set for herself.
“I want to become a pro, but there’s only 17 people invited on the pro circuit in the whole world,” she said. “Overall, I want to make a surf company, promote myself, and be my own ambassador.”
She’s also sponsored by several well-known surf and sport brands, such as Billabong, Dakine, Von Zipper, Surface Sunscreen, Natural Life, Orion Surfboards, and Aqua East Surf Shop.
Only two other girls on the East Coast have Billabong as a sponsor, so that’s impressive on its own.
Of course, nobody gets to the top all by themselves. None of this would be possible without the support of her mom, dad, and siblings.
“We all tag team,” her mom said. “My husband goes on the trips that he can with her, and sometimes I’ll go. Fortunately, we do have six kids, and my 21-year-old goes with her a lot too. You know, I never thought I would be sending her to all these places at just 15 years old.”
Although surfing isn’t very well known in Jacksonville, it’s definitely alive and thriving around the world. Braidyn is living proof that if you want something badly enough, and you work hard at it, you can achieve it, no matter your age or your circumstances.
Maybe sometime, if you’re up early enough at Jax Beach, you might see Braidyn in the distance, skillfully carving up the waves with a huge smile on her face.
Special Feature / North Florida / April-May 2016
Braidyn Cunningham
Jacksonville Beach, Florida
Kim Hoy
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