Indo x Un Mar De Colores

A Piece of the Ocean, Wherever They Go

The ocean belongs to everyone, but access to it has never been equal.

Redlining, segregation, and the cultural and economic barriers that followed have kept many communities, especially Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and low-income families, away from the shoreline for generations. At the same time, today's young people are navigating anxiety, cultural disconnection, and limited access to mental health support.

Un Mar de Colores exists to change that. And that's the idea behind our collaboration with them.

Who's Un Mar de Colores?

Un Mar de Colores is an Oceanside-based nonprofit opening the water to the next generation of BIPOC surfers through surf therapy, mentorship, and ocean education. Their programs pair young people with mentors who teach them to read a wave, respect the water, and build confidence that carries far beyond the shoreline. For a lot of these kids, the first day in the program is the first time anyone has handed them a board and said, this is yours to learn.

Their motto says it best: one ocean touches all shores. It's a simple idea with a big reach, built on the belief that access to the water shouldn't depend on where you grew up or who your family knew. That belief guided the collaboration at every step, from the board's artwork to the way we approached the partnership itself.

Bringing the Water Home

Surfing isn't something you master in a single session, and neither is balance. Both take repetition. Both take a body that has learned to trust itself under shifting ground. That's where the idea for this board started. What if the mentees in this program could keep training that same instinct on the days they're not in the water?

Together, we built a board that carries the program's reach a little further. Now, the mentees who spend their mornings finding their footing in the surf can bring a piece of that feeling home with them. Balance practice on dry land, in their bedroom or the backyard, still connected to the place and the people who taught them to stand up in the first place. It is a small piece of equipment doing a big job: keeping the muscle memory alive between sessions, and keeping the connection to the program alive too.

Collaborations aside, that's the whole idea behind training on a balance board. It rebuilds the small stabilizing movements your body makes without you noticing, the same movements that keep you steady on a surfboard. Practicing on land does not replace time in the water. It sharpens what you already learned there and continues to build on that.

More Than a Board

Collaborations like this can go two ways. Sometimes a brand's name gets stamped on someone else's story after the fact. Other times, the story shapes the product from the start. This one's the latter.

The colorway, the artwork, the way we talk about this board, all of it came out of conversations with Un Mar de Colores, not a design brief written for them. That difference shows up in the details, and it's the reason this collaboration exists at all.

Every board sold supports Un Mar de Colores' work of mentorship and access, putting more kids in the water and keeping that connection alive on land too. It is a direct way for our community to back a program doing real work, one board and one rider at a time.

Ready to bring a piece of the ocean home? Shop the Un Mar de Colores balance board HERE.