Spencer Broome & Kurt Ehlers

Spencer Broome and Kurt Ehlers run Surf ATL, a surf community in a city with no coast.

Brad had surfed for the first time earlier that year at Playa Venao in Panama with his business partner Paul, and came home with the bug. Around the same time Ehlers, who competes on Lake Lanier as a SALTYmf sponsored surfer and had just taken third at a contest in Johnson City, came to him about wake surfing. Ehlers still laughs about the timing of that first meeting. By the time they all sat down in the McBastard Studio, Brad had already worked out he was going to be the whitewash beginner in whatever gets built.

Broome grew up on the coast in Florida and South Carolina, started surfing at twelve, and moved to Atlanta for a job about ten years ago like a lot of people do in the Southeast. He watched wave pool technology get good while wake surfing exploded on the lakes, and decided a surf park in greater Atlanta was a matter of when. Surf ATL came out of connecting those two things, with the community built first and the home for it second. The vision statement is to connect, grow and foster the joy of riding waves. The park is at due diligence on the property and in detailed site planning, with an early round raised and an investor evening set for September 27 at the Standard in Roswell. Meanwhile there are boats out on Lanier every other Sunday, five to seven people each, volunteer drivers, and trips to the Outer Banks, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.

Ehlers is the one who came to it late. He started in 2018 having ridden exactly once, bought his own boat and got his butt kicked for two full seasons, on a boat he was still learning to make surf, with his dad and his wife driving. He did not know anybody else who did it. He says flatly that he is a better coach than he is a rider, and he works with people throwing tricks far beyond his own. He also says he struggles with anxiety and depression, and that on the evenings he gets out on the water at six he comes back in feeling considerably better than he went out. His favorite moment on a boat is not a competition. A friend's niece could not get up while eight relatives shouted advice at her, and the friend told all of them to shut the hell up and let Kurt work. Three attempts later she was standing.

One winter Broome started the 110 Surf Club: add the air and the water temperature together, get under 110, earn the sweatshirt. One group hit 89, which is forty degrees of air and forty nine of water, and Ehlers is still annoyed he missed it. That same instinct is shaping the park. When people travel for surf they want a taste of where they are, so there will be no imported palm trees, and the plan includes free Georgia peanuts and peaches at the door.