Staff Writer

The day after another large snowstorm hit Maine, Aquaholics Surf Shop — with racks of bikinis, displays of surfboards and a back room full of wetsuits — didn’t have any customers drop by, so owner Nanci Boutet sat behind the counter, paying bills, placing orders and thinking “summer.”

“To me, winter, I feel like I’m just biding time — just hanging on until summer comes again,” Boutet said. “I know that sounds like whining, but that’s really how I feel.”

As she bides her time in the Kennebunk shop she opened in 2002, Boutet, 52, of Saco, is checking inventory and ordering the latest surf gear for the upcoming summer season, and while she prefers the summer sunshine, she’s not afraid of surfing during the winter.

“I was hoping to surf this morning, but the waves were just tiny,” Boutet said. 

Surfing in Maine during winter is like a “whole different sport,” Boutet said. Wearing a wetsuit suitable for water temperatures this time of year — the thick suit, gloves and booties — is like lifting weights while paddling, she said, and with a hood attached, it is difficult to turn your neck, muffles sound and can throw off your balance. 

Even though the gear makes surfing harder, Boutet doesn’t let it her stop from surfing year-round, and if she’s not in Maine waters, Boutet is catching waves elsewhere around the globe. 

For the past 10 years, Boutet said she hasn’t spent a single full winter in Maine, instead she has traveled to various surf spots for at least eight weeks each year during winter months. 

Most of her winter travels have landed her in Costa Rica, but she recently visited a fellow surfer in Taghazoute, Morocco, for a “short” 12-day trip, surfing four hours a day on average.

While most people wouldn’t generally identify the tourist town on the northwest coast of Africa as a “hot surf spot,” Boutet said she couldn’t pass up her friend’s invitation to drop in.

“It was amazing,” Boutet said. “Everywhere you go there is another perfect [wave] set up for long, peeling breaks.” 

Despite visiting a predominantly Muslim country where women dress conservatively, Boutet said tourist information she researched said “dress didn’t matter” in the town she was visiting. Boutet dressed conservatively anyway, wearing a wetsuit while surfing in the 60-degree water rather than a swimsuit.

“The people that dressed skimpy did stand out though,” she said. “I think it’s inappropriate. When you visit a country you should have respect for their culture.”

This was Boutet’s first trip to Morocco, but she’s no stranger to traveling and adapting to other cultures, having traveled to more than 20 different countries on six of the seven continents. 

In March, Boutet will head to Oceania for five weeks of surfing off the coasts of Cronulla near Sydney, Australia, and Mount Maunganui in New Zealand.

The last time she traveled to Australia, she and her husband Marc brought their two sons Dustin, now 27, and Matt, now 31. This time, she’s traveling with her husband Marc, who is heading to Sydney for business, and while he’s working, it’s her time to “goof off,” but in New Zealand they’ll both enjoy relaxation and surf while visiting another friend.

“Our friend in New Zealand is a Maori. That culture is known to be quite territorial about their surf, so hopefully we’ll have a local ‘in,’” Boutet said. 

Visiting various places around the world and the country has always been an interest of Boutet’s. Growing up in New Hampshire, she said she moved out of her parent’s house by the time she was 15 and dropped out of high school when she was a sophomore because she “hated school.” 

From there, she moved to Massachusetts and worked as a nanny, making some money before moving to California to live with her sister and brother-in-law. While she returned to school, Boutet said she never earned her high school diploma, though she did eventually receive a general equivalency diploma. 

Boutet said she hitchhiked across the country a total of three times. 

“I hitchhiked a lot. It was a good way to get around in the 70s,” Boutet said. 

It was on one of the trips back home — visiting her mother who summered at Old Orchard Beach — that Boutet met her husband.

Together they moved to Florida, drove to Mexico and ended up back in California. When he moved back to Maine, she stayed behind. Eventually she also returned to Maine and they married. 

After 23 years working as a hairdresser, it was her husband’s suggestion Boutet enroll at the University of Southern Maine. She “hated that too,” but completed a degree in business in 2002. 

A course in entrepreneurship prompted Boutet to rethink her hairdressing career and start her own business. As an assignment, Boutet was required to create a variety of business plans, one of which was a proposal for a surf shop and lessons. 

“Some of my customers were really mad at me that I was leaving [hairdressing],” Boutet said. “I thought it was one of the most feasible ideas I had.” 

While based in a community known for it’s tourism, Boutet she has a “ton” of locals sign up for lessons and she also teaches a group of autistic children once a month throughout the summer. 

“I decided I wanted to teach surfing [as well as open the shop] because I think a lot of people are interested in learning how to surf, and this is a good opportunity for them to give it a try,” she said.

During the summer, Boutet teaches private lessons and hosts three-day surf camps through the Old Orchard Beach, Biddeford and Kennebunk recreation departments, starting everyone out on long boards that are “very forgiving.”

 “There’s a lot of fitness involved, but almost everybody gets up [on the board],” Boutet said. “It’s very rare that they don’t. I just love teaching people to surf.”