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You choose. Canary Island or Santa Cruz.

By Roxanne Rivard Theriault
The Savvy Local

March 26, 2015 — Santa Cruz, CA

“The Surf Office is more than just a place to sleep or work on your computer. When you are there, you are part of a small community of travellers, and this is probably the beauty of it.”

Startups are becoming more and more popular with days. We finally understood that we can do anything by ourselves merely with some motivation and some free times. We can launch an iPhone App, we can write a book, and we can start a blog as we can start our own online shop. Sometimes, in our daily life, focusing can be a challenge. Doing abstraction of all the entertainment that we have isn’t the easiest task to do. We should close our cell phone and our social media websites, but we never do and that’s for that reason that we want to go at The Surf Office.

A co-working space that offers you the beach as your background with some gnarly swells and some motivated people that want the same things as you: work on their project.

You choose. Canary Island or Santa Cruz. Then, you book your nights there. Then, you buy your plane ticket with your credit card, even though it’s expensive. Then, afterwards, close your cell phone data, jump in the plane with your backpack and you are all set up for an adventure combined with hard work and achievement. Co-working spaces aren’t common yet, but I already feel that it’s coming. This is part of our future.

I contacted Peter Fabor, founder of The Surf Office, a while ago. I’ve been quite choked when he told me that a guy from Quebec was at the Santa Cruz office to work on his project. He then offered me to do an interview with him. I wanted both, so here some questions I asked the man behind the creation of the office and Simon Lefebvre, the tinhorn that needed some time to think.

The Surf Office is more than just a place to sleep or work on your computer. When you are there, you are part of a small community of travellers, and this is probably the beauty of it.

Thanks Peter for your time and I will try to catch up with you in Santa Cruz over the summer, who knows, maybe I need some time to focus on the blog, right? Thanks as well Simon for your help, you definitely helps me understand better the vision of the office and it was surprisingly impressive to see that people from our small hometown, Shawinigan, can be travellers too.

Interview with Simon Lefebvre, Surf Office Passenger

Surfing isn’t part of growing up in Quebec. When/how did you get involved with surfing?

SL: In 2008, my friend Pierre-Luc asked me if I wanted to join him for a business trip on Canaries Island. The plan was to use our free time to surf there, so we booked some lessons with one of the local surf schools. The first session was the toughest ever, I thought that I would die! The waves were like head high and choppy so we were struggling a lot, and we also drank a lot of salt water. Other than that, it was pretty fun, even if I haven’t been caught any waves. In the following sessions, the waves were better so we could finally enjoy what surfing really is. Since that first wave (lasting probably only one second), surfing is now part of my life.

Where did you find out about The Surf Office?

SL: During the last three years, every winter I’m escaping from the damn cold winter of Quebec for a month or two. I was looking at possible destinations and California was one of them because of the ”California Dream” I had inside (I’m sure you have it too). Sayulita, Costa Rica and Nicaragua were also on the list (for next year, I guess). I posted a message on the Facebook group ”Quebec Sur”, saying that I was looking for these destinations to work remotely and surf, so that if anybody had contacts, feedback or anything that could help me, to just let me know. Someone posted a link directing me to The Surf Office website. It was the second time I was seeing the link, so I decide to check it out and here I am now, in Santa Cruz.

Continue reading article here: http://thesavvylocal.squarespace.com/style/2015/3/18/the-ocean-is-your-window-view-interview-about-the-surf-office

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