Surf's Up

Aloha again!

It's been a while, so I'm trying to remember what happened between now and then.  Obviously we had a heap of fun on the Big Island.

I learned a few things about myself.

I'm like a dog, or a small child.  I need to be taken out and allowed to run around so that I can sleep like the dead at night.

I'm also like my cat.  I'm finding that I like all the soft and fluffy, so now Stephen and I are working on how best to mediate the bed situation.  He loves our ultra-firm mattress, and I've realized that I like a little extra squishy.

Okay, but really, what happened these last few weeks?

I know we did a lot of surfing.  Now that I have my own board and spent some time reading during our vacation, we've been going out almost every day off.  If you haven't seen the photos on Facebook, allow me to share some of them here:

Just kinda chillin on the surfboard.  I think this day we were out at Castles Beach, which is where we went most days.  It's a short paddle.  Sometimes, whether or not you can go surfing more depends on how much you can swim using only your arms, because that's the only way to get the surfboard from the beach to the waves.

Here's another picture of me just sitting on the waves, waiting for something to come my way.  Surfing is 60% paddling, 30% waiting, and about 10% actually surfing.  I might even be generous on the surfing estimation.  You have to be okay with patiently waiting for the ocean to give you something, because the ocean is definitely the force in charge here.

Just another pretty view of the water at Castles Beach.  Lots of tiny little waves, but it doesn't mean there's a lot to catch.  Most of those don't have enough power to actually ride.

 I managed to get two pretty decent pictures of Stephen trying to surf.  He's a lot farther along in the process than I am, but we've gone about it a little differently.  He was okay with paddling for a wave and then trying to pop up immediately, and he would just suffer the ensuing wipeouts.  I, on the other hand, spent 3-4 sessions just trying to see if I could paddle and catch a wave, never mind actually stand on it.  As you can see here in the second picture, Stephen actually succeeds.  I always have the hardest time getting pictures of him, though, because once I end up with the camera, he decides to get all impatient and tries to surf all the waves, and he ends up catching none of them.

The ocean isn't going to give you waves just because you want them.

Here is Stephen's soon-to-be-infamous Instagram picture.  I think it pretty much captures the point I am in my progress.  I'm still riding waves, and now I'm getting my feet under me, but my back foot isn't well planted at all, so I'm not going to succeed in standing up.  I got impatient today and tried it a few times, as you'll see.  I need to take a step back and focus on getting my feet in the proper low crouch before I worry about standing up.  And before that, I need to worry more about catching a good wave than trying to catch everything so I can stand up.

The biggest difference between Stephen and me is that he has a more powerful swim stroke, so if it isn't the best wave, he can power through it.  I can't.  I actually have to choose my waves carefully or else I'll spend two hours just paddling around until I get tired.  Not fun.

Finally, a picture from just this morning, when we decided to take our friend out with us.  He just got the most enormous longboard ever, but no instruction on how to surf, so we're like, okay, we're not experts, but we can at least give you pointers based on our own mistakes.  We had a great time!

Of course, we went last Saturday and Sunday, and then we went again on Friday, and then it turned out that yesterday had a few good waves, and we had already agreed to take our friend out this morning followed by brunch, so my back and arms are all kinds of ow.  I was carrying the surfboard yesterday and wondering why my back hurt so much.  I actually asked Stephen when the last time we surfed was, and he said Friday.  I had to ask him what day that was, and when he said it was just two days ago, I realized why I was so tired.

I want to share some videos, but I'm not sure how to download them from Facebook, so I will let you wait with bated breath until we finally get some videos up.  I have some to share from the big island, too, so maybe one of these days we'll stop surfing for long enough to edit them and upload them!  Until then, mahalo for joining us!