By Alice Latuf
I don’t remember a moment in my life I wasn’t surprised by my mom, Briguitte Linn Wiedemeyer.
Since I was a little girl, I have this image of her as someone who could do anything if she wanted to. But the thing is, she does what she loves – and, thank god, it has everything to do with water.
Her first contact with water was when she was 2 years old: she fell at the sailing club her family frequented and almost drowned. I don’t really understand why, but in the moment, she fell in love. Her family moved to Portugal and she went to beach all the time, and even though the North Atlantic is always freezing, her mother only could take her way from the ocean when her lips were blue.
When they moved back, she was 5 and my grandfather gave her a snorkel and a pair of fins. The sea became her playground, but she lived in a city without beaches. Every year during summer, they went to their beach house on vacation and she played in the waves for hours and hours.
She was a swimmer from age 14 until 24 and then she started to sail until age 31, always competing and traveling because of it. She always tells me one of her favorite trip to Japan in 1984.
Since then, bodysurfing is her passion. Her life is all around it. She works so she can go on trips to surf with other people, meet new styles and learn how to be better.
We live in Garopaba, where she raised me. It’s a small city, famous for the good waves in Santa Catarina, Brazil. She has a gym, and the place is just amazing – with two swimming pools, both heated, one 25m and the other of 8m and a dancing room. She teaches kids and adults to swim, and everything is just lovely.
There aren’t any other bodysurfers around here, so it’s kinda hard to explain what we do – people are always closed to “new” things. Even though bodysurf is as old as surf itself. It is also nice, because as a small town, sometimes there is just us out there, the beach and the waves just for us.
At the south of Brazil, we have all kinds of weather. The seasons are very different from each other. Sometimes the water is cold like in California. In summer it is hot as Costa Rica. Still, it is an amazing place.
I’m always grateful for my mother choosing this city to live. The waves are great. We are about ten minutes from our favorite beach, Silveira. The beaches are between hills. If the wind comes from the south, we are going to surf on the south side of the beach, protected from the wind.
The north side of Silveira is excellent for bodysurfing. When it’s big, there are a lot of tubes but the wave is really fast. In the south, the wave opens more and is slower so you can think more.
Briguitte loves the south, thank god – the north is all mine!
I’m amazed by everything my mother has done – but bodysurfing is what makes her the happiest. The way this sport makes people feel is out of this world. Thank you for sharing this love!
Swell Lines 
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