"I always want to show that Hawaiian beauty and strength are timeless,” she says.
One of the more beautiful love stories to drip out of the surfing lifestyle is Mahina Florence née Garcia and surfing bad boy, the dangerously redheaded middle Florence brother Nathan.
Mahina and Nathan Florence are childhood sweethearts turned soulmates. They met in third grade at Sunset Beach Elementary. Nathan, already a surf prodigy although much shadowed by his older brother John John Florence, recognised this Hawaiian force of nature.
Mahina saw the quiet boy with bright ginger hair who charged bigger waves than anyone except his brother John John and little brother Ivan.
“I made the first move, of course,” says Mahina.
Friendship deepened through high school surf trips and beach bonfires.
At 18, they dated.
A brief split at 22 tested them. Distance clarified what mattered.
They reunited stronger, building a life on shared values: ocean, family, authenticity.
They married in June 2020 in an intimate Pūpūkea ceremony. The couple were barefoot, lei-draped, and surrounded by surf legends and hula dancers.
“He’s my calm in the chaos,” she says.
Nathan Florence calls her “my compass.”
As if it needed to be said, or clarified, Mahina’s remarkable Hawaiian beauty has been recognised by Playboy magazine, which has crowned her Playmate of the Month.
Mahina’s lineage stretches back generations in Hawaii, where Mahina was raised on the North Shore of Oahu in Pūpūkea. The ocean has long been the center of her day, beginning with her beach walks every morning followed by a dip in the water.
“The lifestyle that I currently have at home in Hawaii, connected to nature, outdoors, surfing, living a healthy lifestyle is perfect,” she says. “My whole goal and dream is to keep doing what I’m doing forever. I don’t feel like I need any more of one thing. I need to be home in Hawaii, around the ocean and my family.”
Mahina takes particular pride in representing her Polynesian heritage in PLAYBOY. “I always want to show that our beauty and strength are timeless,” she says.
You can preorder the issue featuring Mahina Florence here.
The terrific news of Mahina’s Playboy spread comes only one month after the gods were bombarded with prayers and thoughts following Nathan Florence’s battle with an untreatable tropical disease that, while not often deadly, can leave its victim emaciated and weak for months afterwards.