92 Year Old Surf Granny Still Rips

One day we will all be shrivelled raisins decomposing into plant fertilizer. 

Or we won’t, maybe we’ll shuffle off this mortal coil prematurely, without the wrinkle and ache of old age turning our bodies slowly to dust. 

“Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go,” said the great British poet, Henry Austin Dobson – now ain’t that the truth. 

Aging seems sad and solemn mostly, filled with death, dementia, and drugs to keep your colon from rupturing.

But occasionally you’ll meet an old sweetie, sparkly eyes intact, grey matter preserved in honey, cheating all biological clocks, and still finding ways to ‘get after it’ (to echo David Goggins), far beyond the best by date of human protoplasm. 

Kiwi grandmother of seven, Nancy Meherne is one of those people. 

At 92, Nance can be found springsuit-clad in the chilly waters of Scarborough Beach, NZ, catching waves on her belly on her fifty year old pumice-looking surfboard. 

In an interview with The Guardian, Nance says:

“Other [surfers] respect me because I’m old… I like to see a nice big one coming and a gap. You can’t get on one little wave after another. You wait until you see a big wave and then you come in on that. I love just speeding in. You’re moving so quickly, it’s really good.”

Nance attributes her longevity to a life well lived, plus, the sugarless diet she’s adopted for the best part of seventy years. “You’ve got to have fun,” she says when asked about her life philosophy. 

Nance will be turning 93 in August and says she will keep surfing for as long as she is able to “do a little jump” to get on the waves.

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