Surf Day One
Surfer’s log. Day 1.
In fear of the swarming, beer toting fourth of July crowds we gave ourselves plenty of time to get lost finding the beach for our first surf lesson. As it turns out, alcohol was banned on all San Diego beaches starting last year. At 9:00 AM the only people heading down the long wooden steps were slinging planks, their wetsuit arms dangling and swinging from their waists like rubbery appendages.
Our fearless guide was an old surfer who’d probably been hit by one too many waves. He was having a bum day and spent the pauses between instructions semi-coherently muttering about his incompetent employees, one of whom wore a hat with his competition’s logo. He called her on it and she grudgingly stuffed it into a bag.
He explained the various dangers to us, including the dreaded sting of the sting ray. “If you do manage to get stung by one, well, we have a hot pad. Actually, that happened just last week. And the damned hot pad wouldn’t work. You know you’ve got to crack that little thing inside it so that it heats up and… well anyway, it wasn’t working and the kid was in a lot of pain so we called the lifeguards. Of course, they never showed up. This year we’ve got the most damned incompetent bunch of lifeguards I’ve ever seen. That’s the last thing you need. Incompetent lifeguards. Anyway, try not to get stung. But if you do, well, I guess we’ve still got that hot pad.”
Thus reassured that all would be well, we practiced a few rounds of jumping into position on the beach and then hauled our massive foam boards to the water. These surfboards were so huge and floatacious that they pretty much rode themselves. All of our paddling probably did little more than confuse the situation. Because they were so stable, we were actually hopping up onto the boards pretty quickly and the challenge became all about staying up once we’d made the clumsy leap into position.
By the end of the lesson, around 1:00 PM, we were having a blast and starting to feel that elusive sense of control dangling just beyond our reach, our fingers touching it in little moments of thrilling ecstasy. The inevitable wipeout that followed would leave me writhing and struggling to the surface, blowing out saltwater as fast as I could to make way for shouts of delight.
We began eagerly bargaining for rental deals on equipment and our instructor agreed to let out our wetsuits and two boards for the week. We went back to his trailer, grabbed two nine foot foam boards, and scribbled the total amount on the back of one of his release forms. “Oops. Who was this for? Oh well, now you have his address. Here, I’ll add a phone number. Whatever.” We loaded the boards into the back of the van, where they fit perfectly, proving Bebe to once again be the ultimate road vehicle.
“You can pay me now. Or at the end of the week. I don’t care. You look trustworthy. You’re hippies. Sorta. If I’m not here just leave the boards by the trailer and put the money…” he looked around. There were piles of debris stacked in front of the tarp draped between his trailer and the tiny shed that held the boards and wetsuits. He lifted up a milk crate filled with cans of spray paint and a yellowed cardboard milk carton labeled, “Dog and cat repellent. The best available for the prevention of accumulating animal waste. Remove all solid waste before applying the product.”
“Here. Yeah, leave it here. You just, you know, look around, nobody looking, and then slip it under here.”
We thanked him and headed straight back to the beach. This time we stripped down to just our wetsuits and boards, bringing only a bottle of water and car keys. We didn’t even wear sandals for the walk across the pavement. This time we had to walk quite a ways along the beach to avoid all of the surfers and children that had started to fill the water, but eventually found a clear spot to make mistakes. We rode and rode and rode. It was very much like learning to ride a unicycle. Every tiny perceived breakthrough lead to a rush of insistent energy pushing me back out into the pounding waves to try again. Even though I was using a big foam beginner board and riding the cruft near the shore, I was already feeling like a hero every time I stood up and felt myself flying toward the land, the engine of the wave a massive force that I, a tiny insignificant being, could tap for my own amusement.
After four more hours of riding we finally decided it would be better to wrap up and save some energy for the rest of the week. We met up with my friend Aviva Stand-Luebke and her crew at a sweet beach house near Ocean Beach. After a grilled feast we wandered to the beach that had been covered with blankets and people as far as we could see. The fireworks started north of us and were visible to our right, then fireworks displays started at the end of the pier in front of us and to our left in Mexico. With each particularly bright explosion over the water, I could make out a cloud of little black dots floating on the ocean’s surface: dozens of surfers in wetsuits who had paddled out for the view.
Just before the fire show cleared the sky Aviva stuffed my hands with more marshmallows than I could possibly eat and my puzzled face was suddenly pounded by a hailstorm of squishy white blobs as the whole crowd exploded in a massive marshmallow fight. What can I say. For today: go America!
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Hey! Did you get eaten by a shark? Where’s “Surf Day 2?” Great writing style, BTW. Burn that fossil fueled surf journey!