SURF’S UP FOR BOOGIE BOARD CLUB
Newcomers Club of San Dieguito’s board-riding group has members ranging from their late 40s to 95
SOLANA BEACH
In the early 1970s, the Boogie Board was born. So was Charlotte Gumbrell’s love for riding the waves on the popular foam body boards. Fifty years later, Gumbrell is still at it, as the oldest member of the Newcomers Club of San Dieguito’s boogie board club.
Gumbrell, 95, is among a group of about two dozen women who meet up to three times a week for board surfing sessions at North County beaches. Most of the women who regularly gather at Fletcher
Cove in Solana Beach and Moonlight Beach in Encinitas are in their 70s and 80s, though there are a handful of women in their late 40s and 50s, as well as a couple of husbands and the occasional grandchild. Gumbrell said boogie boarding is a great sport to grow old with.
“I always feel better with my brain when I go boogie boarding. I’m sure it helps,” said Gumbrell, a Del Mar resident. “Every year I say this is going to be my last year out there, but then I just keep going. If I can get out there, I’m always so happy I did.”