HOW ADVENTURER EMI KOCH IS INSPIRING COMMUNITIES TO PRESERVE AND MAXIMISE WHAT THEY HAVE BOTH ON THE WATER AND UNDER IT WORDS: JAMES EVANS


T


here are many of us who feel totally ill at ease in the typical office environment, even more so if that workspace is flanked by sprawling roads, seemingly endless roofscapes and an urban hum that never subsides.


While surfer, campaigner and teacher Emi Koch isn’t completely alien to those surrounds – the 31-year-old grew up in San Diego and studied for a degree at the George Washington University – so far removed now is she from a life around city dwellers that you cannot imagine she will ever return to fast society.


When we speak over Skype, she is in Peru. Her village is Lobitos, her backdrop is a windswept beach and the South Pacific ocean, and the internet signal is intermittent at best. The pioneer behind Beyond the Surface International, an inspirational program that gives underprivileged children and adults in remote locations the tools to build social and economic change through surfing and storytelling, Emi is back on the north-west tip of South America after another clutch of trips, missions and adventures.


“Lobitos has become a base for us and Beyond the Surface, but the work of the organisation goes on in many different areas, including Africa and south-east Asia,” she begins. “We have achieved a great deal but there is always more work to be done, and that’s a thrill.”


It’s certainly a diversion from the stereotyped ‘surf chick’ image that Emi felt she might end up subscribing to, like so many of her peers growing up. “I’d built up decent standing in the surf world and had sponsorship from Billabong Women, but rather than go down the usual route, decided I could actually leverage my influence to promote young people who never really get the spotlight on them, unless that was in the way of sympathy or pity for the relative poverty they live in.


“I wanted to really shine the light on people who lived by the sea to show the world how incredible and talented they are. And besides which, the world didn’t need another blonde-haired, blue-eyed surfer girl from California!” she laughs. Emi made contact with three surf clubs - one in South Africa, one in India and a third, in Lobitos, Peru. “The intention was to promote them, to give them a


52 | WINTER 2021 | ONBOARD


ABOVE and BEYOND


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