*If you are an actual, real live surfer, such as this fabulous gentleman with his white handlebar mustache, or if you are used to reading about world class surfers like I wrote about here, please enjoy this humorous account of people that are not nearly as good, and don’t laugh at us TOO much. Although I really wouldn’t blame you.*
We had family here for the past week, so on our couple days off, we decided to go full on rural, old school Hawaii. And along with our off the grid, solar electricity, outdoor shower, yoga loving, communal kitchen residence, we’d have to do some surf lessons. If we were really going to do local Hawaii, we’d have to go all the way. Besides, could we really leave Hawaii without saying we hadn’t been surfing?
Remembering the time when we got stranded on the wrong side of a raging Japanese river and had to be rescued by the police, and the time when we decided to fly halfway across the world when I had HG and threw up approximately 23 times in an airplane bathroom, we decided to be smart about it.
Local instructor, beginner boards, well rested the night before. Surfing was going to be great. Right up until we pulled up to the beach. I thought for sure C. would say the waves looked a little big, because I thought they looked GINORMOUS, but he proclaimed that “They were perfect, because you can’t get any speed on the small ones.”
You guys. We must look like we would be exceptional surfers, for our instructor to trust us like that. It must be the extra tan skin I got from when family was in town, or my beachy hair. (I like to call it ‘beachy’ hair, but really half the time it’s the new game my one year old has developed ‘Yank all of Mom’s Hair and then Eat it’.)
But to C., Joe and I both looked like we could handle the North Shore with ease and excitement. On our first day ever surfing. Having never actually carried a surf board before.
Spoiler alert: we couldn’t.
But we decided to trust the expert, and forget the fact that he had been surfing for years and might forget what it’s like to be a beginner and also that he didn’t have kids and instead had a whole life of working out and sleeping all night long and eating delicious kale omelets with his homegrown eggs. Meanwhile, we consider ourselves lucky if we get to scarf down our toddler’s leftover banana for breakfast after only one wake-up from our baby.
And probably we were stronger than we thought and also distance made the waves look bigger, right?
We should have taken the hint when even the birds were reluctant to go in the water.
Did you know that the ocean is a living, breathing, thing? So you can’t just sit still and take a break, because the sneaky little waves push you back to shore in and in two seconds you’ve lost 20 feet? So we headed out and kept paddling. (Once I fell off the surf board when I wasn’t even doing anything. I was very astonished, but I shouldn’t have been.)
Anyway, out we finally got, me lagging 40 feet behind everyone else. “Go straight into the waves if you’re not going to catch it”, we were told. “Just straight through the spray even if it’s started to crest.” So easy, right?
When we got out there the waves were four to six feet for this Nebraska girl who only just managed to tell the difference between a paddle board and a surf board, and who had actually never been this far from shore FOR ANYTHING without a board or two between her and the ocean.
And I didn’t actually even catch one wave. I ALMOST caught a 6 foot one, but fell when I was just up, and instead only succeeded in getting pounded by the next three in succession, getting a few panicked breaths in between. I would like to add here, that our instructor, while he grossly overestimated our skill potential, was so excellent that I never actually worried I would drown. Also, despite my professed incompetence, I can swim a little, so I’m not sure how much danger I was actually in.
They did not use the Rescue board OR the ambulance for me, so I’m counting it as a win.
But the danger FELT real, and it was the most real at the end when exhaustion hit and I would have happily paddled out past the breaking waves, and lay on my surf board until someone came to get me. (In fact, that’s mostly what I did. Bless C, who has clearly perfected the art of paddling for two.)
Things we learned from that morning:
The life of a parent who hasn’t slept through most of the nights in the last 3 years is a poor lifestyle for a surfer.
Also, balancing on a paddleboard and balancing on a surfboard are as different as walking on dry ground and trying to stand up on a running horse.
That when a wave has knocked you off your surf board, but the board is still tethered to your ankle feels like a giant trying to tear your leg off.
What a riderless surf board looks like from the backside of a wave, flying up to the sky alone. (Joe was much better than me, but still not great.)
Well, we always say that experiences and learning new things are important to us, as long as they don’t kill us. So I guess we can just barely count this one in that category.
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