Guitar-wielding surfer loves the freedom of her music and the waves

David Quick // The Post and Courier

MT Bourque rides a wave in the 10th annual Folly Beach Wahine Classic in June. Nearly 100 female surfers participated.

There’s a moment in every wave when time seems to stand still. Surfers say it’s when nothing else matters but the ride and the saltwater.

It’s the feeling a golfer gets when he strikes the perfect shot or when a basketball player gets into the “zone” and can’t miss.

It’s these moments that Mary Townsend Bourque lives for.

“It’s hard to describe. You really can’t put it into words unless you’re surfer,” said Bourque, 17, a rising senior at Wando High School. “But if you’ve surfed, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You can find it in almost every wave.”

Growing up on the Isle of Palms, Bourque, or MT as she’s known to family and friends, naturally gravitated to the ocean and surfing.

“All our neighbors had surfboards and when I’d go to the beach as a kid everyone was surfing,” she said. “It just looked like a lot of fun and since my big brother was doing it, I wanted to do it too.”

Her brother, David Clark Bourque, got used to having MT tag along.

“She was a tomboy,” said David, who graduated from Wando High last month. “She wanted to do everything that I did, but I kind of liked it. I was flattered.”

MT got so good at surfing that her father finally bought a board for himself.

“I really didn’t have a choice,” said David Bourque, an engineering teacher at Laing Middle School. “If I wanted to hang out with them I was going to have to get in the water. Now, I love it.”

MT entered her first surfing contest — the Folly Beach Wahine Classic — in 2006 at age 11. She finished second in the junior novice division. The trophy was bigger than she was.

“It’s the biggest trophy she’s ever won. It’s like 4½ feet tall,” said her mother, Carol, a special education teacher at Wando. “She’s a natural athlete. There doesn’t seem to be a sport she can’t play.”

But to MT, nothing compares to being on the water.

“I like to try a little bit of everything, but I always come back to surfing,” MT said. “There’s just something about the ocean and the saltwater that draws me to it. I can’t explain it.”

She averages about a dozen surf competitions a year. In 2010, she was the Eastern Surfing Association’s No. 2 women’s longboarder.

“I was pretty excited about it,” MT said. “There are a lot of great women surfers on the East Coast, so it was a pretty big accomplishment for me.”

An honor student and an aspiring musician, Bourque is more than just a surfer.

“She’s just a good all-around person,” said Nancy Hussey, the Folly Beach Wahine Classic director. “She’s a great role model for all the little wahine’s out there.”

MT picked up a guitar about the same time she started surfing. Music quickly became another passion in her young life. She formed her own band — MT’s Saltwater Sound — made up of mostly fellow Wando students. The band hopes to produce an album in the near future.

“I write about things that happen in my life,” she said of her music. “My lyrics tend to be pretty easy to figure out. I love the freedom music gives you. It’s a lot like surfing. There are few boundaries.”

Can MT become the female version of Jack Johnson, a former professional surfer turned folk rock star?

“I’d love that,” she said. “I think to do the two things I really love would be a dream come true.”