Bruised ribs, Cut feet, Sore arms

I finally took the plunge...tackled the Pacific on a flimsy piece of fiberglass. Yesterday...one with the water, I attempted to surf.

Man am I sore today!

One of our actors is an avid surfer...hitting the beach first thing in the morning before his 8am show call. He had been trying to arrange for a group of us newbies to go together for a while now. So yesterday afternoon three car loads of people and a truck of boards headed for White Plains Beach in the Kapolei/Kalaeloa area.We didn't have much of a lesson so much as a talk through before we hit the surf. Graciously, our instructor gave my co-worker and I the long boards. They may look unwieldy, but they're much easier to balance on...not that I ever really made it that far.

Half the battle was learning to paddle out against the surf far enough out to where the waves built up momentum. Flat on your stomach against the rough wax surface of the board, arms pulling through the cool salt water as waves beat ceaselessly towards you. As we paddled farther out, the waves build...it was trickier to just bob over them. The first challenge...pushing up on the board to keep you above the surf. And back down again...maneuvering the awkward board against the flow and towards our waiting guide.

The water at the beach was maybe chin deep even at the deepest point...allowing our guide to stand in the water next to us as we fumbled on our boards trying to aim them shoreward again. The paddling, turning, sitting, straddling, remounting...I managed to nail all of that. It's the actually surfing that I couldn't seem to get the hang off...

Ankle tethered to the board, I lay waiting with our guide standing alongside the tail end...watching for an ideal wave to shove us in the right direction...screaming "paddle, paddle, paddle" after us as the water swept us further away.

The first few times...just to get a feel for the water and the board, we pushed up into a cobra stance...you can feel yourself pick up speed and the wave break under you, but I still had no clue when one should attempt to find their footing. And back into the battling surf, paddling against the water to reach our guide again. I sat upright a while straddling the board as my co-worker tackled the next wave...watching her slightly more successful attempt...
giving my arms and shoulders a much needed rest.

And back again. It was two and a half hours of paddling out, waiting, turning, floundering shoreward, wiping out, paddling back...

I only made it to my knees...never even managed to bring one foot forward before the momentum of the wave petered off or grew too strong for me to navigate the board. I bit it more times than I care to count. My feet slipped on sharp rocks as I turned my board out before mounting again to paddle into the deeper water. My ribs bruised the board every time I pushed myself up to avoid a mouthful of seawater. And my shoulders are screaming in that dull satisfying ache that often accompanies a hard work out.

The rest of the afternoon I spent out of the water, giving others in our group a shot at the surf...walked along the beach watching them flounder as successfully as I had. And later the sun setting behind the Waianae Mountains. Our group was finally shooed out of the beach area by the gracious and friendly Pearl Harbor PD.Between the Chinese New Year, the Superbowl party, Mardi Gras, yesterday's day of surf and sun and a new friend whom I may talk about later...February has been a blast...