Sunday, January 20, 2013

Surfing at St. Augustine Beach


Surfing has been on my to-do list for a long, long time.  Well, I finally got to do it, and it was awesome.

We took a lesson at The Surf Station, two hours for $60 each. Money very, very well spent.  Surfing isn’t something you try to do on your own. Getting a few lesson sets you up on a solid foundation. And Alex, our instructor, was fantastic. He was patient, encouraging, thorough, and had great passion for the sport.

Paddling into the ocean gave me the first sign that I’d love it.  Sounds disappeared.  It’s just you and the ocean.  Silence is hard to come by, something I seek out regularly, and here it was thirty yards from the shore, a place I’d been hundreds of times.

Standing on a surfboard and giving in to where a wave takes you is simply exhilarating.  For a few moments, time just stops.  I’m floating, and weightless, and riding a wave. The whole time there was a part of me saying, “How the hell is this happening?!”

I don’t really know how, but I stood up on the very first wave and many waves after.  I think the reason I was so comfortable on the board was that I wanted very badly to stay the hell out of the water. I needed to stay far, far away from any giant-toothed creature that was waiting to devour me. Motivation coupled with paranoia, two of my favorite states of mind.

Amelia, on the other hand felt like she was tethered to a torpedo so she wasn’t so good at making friends with her surfboard.  But she’s the girl who wants to be “in” the ocean so it makes sense. She’s comfortable wrapping the ocean around her like a poncho and floating there.  I broke out into a mini-sweat just typing that.  She’s in the ocean, I’m on the ocean.

The waves beat the living hell out of us most of the time, but in a good way. You really have to work to get back out to take another wave which makes riding the wave all the more satisfying.  My arms ached after two hours of paddling myself after the waves.

Once thing is for sure, I’ll be doing this again.

-Leah

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