As an instructor from Corky Carroll’s Surf School gave 9-year-old Maya Madden a gentle push into the whitewash at Bolsa Chica State Beach, her mother snapped photos. It was Maya’s first surf lesson.

Stand-up paddle surfing may sound like a scene from a screwball comedy, but no one’s laughing in a sports and fitness industry that has hit the recession skids as hard as any other business. SUP, as ...

To many who grew up in a marine environment, surfing is no mere sport or hobby, it is a way of life — as articulated by Sean Penn’s character Jeff Spicoli in the flick “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” ...

Mike Laielli is proprietor of Primal Surf in Brigantine. He has taught surfing lessons for 15 years and also gives instruction in the increasingly popular activity of stand-up paddleboarding (SUP).