CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — From the street, Josiah Morris’ Flour Bluff shop seems quiet. Step inside and the roar of a planer fills the room as he turns blocks of foam into surfboards.
This Saturday, one of his boards will head downtown for “The Board Walk,” a new surfboard installation at the 11th annual Surftoberfest. It will feature work from more than 20 Texas surfboard shapers, the largest gathering of Texas shapers the event has hosted.
From California to the Coastal Bend
Morris grew up in Oxnard, California, in a family of surfers who couldn’t always afford new boards.
“We didn’t have the luxury of getting new boards all the time, and so we had to repair, when they would get broken, and I took a liking to that at a pretty young age,” Morris said.
He got his start sanding boards for a builder in Ventura. Today, he owns Morris Surfboards and still builds as a contractor for Channel Islands Surfboards, one of the biggest names in the sport.
“Well, there’s an old joke: I make surfboards, not money,” Morris said. “I get more enjoyment from that than I actually do surfing.”
About four and a half years ago, he moved to the Coastal Bend and had to adjust to a different kind of wave. Gulf swells carry less energy than waves in California or Hawaii, so his Texas boards get a lower rocker, which is a flatter curve in the nose.
“So that took some time getting used to and making boards just for Texas, on Texas surf and the Gulf Coast,” he said. “And when the waves are good here, it’s, it’s really good.”
When he arrived, Morris reached out to the area’s established shapers first. He didn’t want them to feel he was there to take their business. Instead, some offered him space to build boards in their own shops while he set up his.
Built by hand, one board at a time
Morris shapes boards on Mondays and finishes them by Friday. He averages about two and a half boards a week, with 8 to 10 hours of work on each, and he’s currently booked about a month out.
His customers range from professional surfers to kids. He says he invites young surfers into the shop and will “teach any kid any trick I know.”
He still remembers his first board, which his sister-in-law still has.
“I think I got lucky on the first one. And the next 50 after that were trash,” he said with a laugh.
The board going downtown
The board Morris is bringing Saturday belongs to a return customer in his 60s who hadn’t surfed in years.
“He’s healthier than ever. His blood pressure is down. His wife said he’s more bearable to be around,” Morris said.
For Morris, Saturday is about the community as much as the boards.
“I just think it’s really, really neat that everybody’s gonna get together and shake hands and, you know, check out each other’s work and build more of that camaraderie,” he said.
If you go
Surftoberfest runs Saturday, Oct. 17, from noon to 11:30 p.m. at the Executive Surf Club, 306 N. Chaparral St., and extends along Chaparral Street. Admission is free.
Besides The Board Walk, Royboy Tiki Hut will shape a board live on site. The festival also features:
- More than 20 seasonal beers, bratwurst, and pork schnitzel sliders
- Stein-holding competitions and costume contests for people and pets
- A free Kids Zone presented by Steel Dynamics, with root beer steins, Bavarian hats, and temporary tattoos
- 12 hours of live music from Diamond’s Edge, The Chainlinks, Young Klassics, 18 Hours, Chicas Rock, Red Ravens, Crucial Riddims, Eric Graham, and Mikey Rivera Jr.
Proceeds benefit the Texas Surf Conservancy. The nonprofit was founded in 2022 to protect coastal habitat through oyster mariculture, and its free “Science of Oysters” program has reached more than 3,000 Coastal Bend students.
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