Surf Article from the Past

The surf's up in Ontario too

Small-town surfer girl rides big time

By Mike Strobel

I have watched you on the shore
Standing by the ocean's roar
Do you love me, do you, surfer girl? -- The Beach Boys

The outskirts of Hamilton are the last place you'd expect to find a surfer girl. But there she dwells, sea-dust in her eyes.
You can find her at her mom and dad's in Caledonia or down the road at Hewitt's Dairy Bar.
Or, like me, you can find her at Whole Foods in Yorkville, when she's in the big city for dance training.
Don't let that sultry photo fool you. Leslie-Ann Gervais, 26, is small town and apple pie.
She does not smoke or drink, excluding milkshakes. And that surfer's staple, weed, has not touched her lungs.
If there were a Miss All-Canadian, sweetheart division, she could be it.
But she has escaped the jaws of a shark. She has survived the pounding of three-storey waves. She has bloodied the ocean's spray. She has braved the sludgy surf off Hamilton harbour.
And she has heard dolphins sing in the sea.
"Surfing is like dancing in the sea," she says. "Someone doing a cutback on a mountain of water ... it's truly art."
This week she is off to rejoin the California pro tour. I cottoned on to her in the wake (pardon the expression) of my column last week on Jeff Karram, 23. He's a Markham Internet entrepreneur who gave it all up to pursue a surfing career. He is in Ecuador, reality show crew in tow.
He has cojones, but I suspect Leslie-Ann Gervais has a better shot at the crest of their sport.
She is a former top fencer. A torn-up knee kept her out of the Sydney Games and she retired to focus on surfing.
She took up the sport seven years ago.
In Caledonia, Ont?
Well, it may not have made The Endless Summer, but Great Lakes surfing is on a roll.
Leslie-Ann began in the surf under the Skyway Bridge and along the north shore of Lake Erie.
You can find decent waves at places like Point Albino.
But Great Lakes surfing has hazards, too.
A big muskie once grabbed a surfer's board in Lake Erie. It had to be clubbed off.
And "the last time I was in Erie," says Leslie-Ann, "it took a day and a half to get the algae out of my hair.
"At least you don't have to worry about sharks."
Once, off South Africa, a Great White rose from the deep and, in a terrifying swirl of water, bumped her board. That's what Great Whites do before they eat you.
Leslie-Ann scooted for shore.
"I still get the shivers whenever I think about it," she says.
A faded scar crosses her chin. She took 32 stitches when her board flew into her face in the roiling seas off San Francisco.
"I've got scars all over my body," she says. The marks of coral and sandbars from Portugal to Hawaii.
She carted her board wherever fencing meets took her, even the Canary Islands.
She is a three-time Canadian East Coast champ and has qualified for as many world championships.
But, unless they make the world pro tour (44 men, 16 women), surfers compete mostly for pizza money.
So sponsors are the ticket.
And most sponsors like bronzed, bikini-clad boys and babes.
"I avoid the sun like the plague," says Leslie-Ann.
"I'm sure I've lost sponsors because I'm not a sun worshipper, out there flaunting my body.
"That's just not who I am, and I can't change that."
So her main sponsor is Napier Enterprises in St. Catharines, which makes tailgate tents for trucks.
Well, to heck with Coppertone and Foster Grant and all those commercial giants of the beach. It's the siren of the sea that calls Leslie-Ann Gervais.
Love has not, yet.
"Funny, everyone thinks I'm out there on the beach meeting all these guys. But I've usually got zinc cream smeared all over me. And I don't hang out on the beach.
"I'm not a party girl."
She last did the California tour in 2002, ranking middle-of-the pack though she entered only three of seven meets.
Think you can do it? Go from the muck of Hamilton harbour to the podium on some breezy Hawaiian beach? It'd be one helluva ride.
"I wonder, too," she says. "I don't want to have any regrets."
Hang five, surfer girl.