When she was 5 years old, Carissa Moore started surfing with her dad off the beaches of Waikiki in her native Honolulu, Hawaii. “By the time I was 12, we had a more serious conversation, saying, ‘Is this something I really want to do?’ Carissa says. “I knew it was going to be a lot of hard work, but I also knew it would be really fun.”
She started collecting wins at NSSA junior surf competitions and top spots at the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships, where she helped Hawaii win a team victory. She clinched a record 11 NSSA amateur titles, and at 16 in 2008, she became the youngest champion at a Triple Crown of Surfing event when she won the Reef Hawaiian Pro.
