Surfing 123

During my first week here I met Collin, an American guy who is starting a surfing company. He and his partner are planning to open a surfing shop and also give surfing lessons. It didn't take long to peak my curiosity. Water skiing to wake-boarding to surfing just seems like a natural progression! So when his shipment of surfing equipment arrived a couple of weeks ago, some of the other teachers and I asked him when he was going to be ready to start lessons.

Bright & early on Saturday morning, Mary, Stacy & I caught a taxi down to the beach (about 10 minutes from our neighborhood) to meet up with the group. There were eight of us who showed up for the 8:45am lesson. Wow – that is early for a Saturday! We spread out the boards on the beach and got a quick rundown on how to jump up from laying down to standing up on the boards. We probably looked pretty funny all laying down on the boards on the sand and then at the count of three jumping up to a surfing stance! Collin and Gabe gave us a few warnings about what to do when waves are coming at you (like the turtle roll – that’s my personal favorite!). Finally, with our hearts pounding, we picked up the boards to head to the water. I was asking myself if I was crazy for trying this after all the trouble I’ve had with my neck this summer, but I didn’t have time to analyze that thought before Bethany popped out a camera – a brief reprieve for our pounding hearts as we stopped to get pictures before really heading down to the water.

We got the boards out into the water and Collin & Gabe helped us push them in to the waves and figure out when to stand up. I got up on my first try. I couldn’t believe it was that easy!

That was the first week…

Since then I have discovered that, no, it’s not that easy. It’s a lot more work when you are paddling yourself out to the big waves, figuring out which wave to catch, and getting turned around and paddling til the wave picks you up and then figuring out just when to stand up. But, it is a lot of fun!