Swing and a Miss - August 10, 2010

We’re a few days into our vacation now and this place is an absolute paradise.  We’ve been playing tennis, catching up on summer reading, and of course surfing every chance we get. 

St. George Island

Each morning before breakfast, we check out the surf and plan our day accordingly.  As we venture back and forth to the coast, we take this small sandy trail through a pine forest that ends at the beach.  There’s nothing like being able to just walk our boards down to the gulf rather than have to load up the car and drive.  Our new way feels so…surf camp-ish. 

Perhaps I’m pretending this is a true surf vacation because each morning as we look observe the blown-out conditions that no real surfer would waste her time on, I suggest, “Why don’t we just try it?”  I just can’t imagine not surfing while we’re so close to the water! 

But it’s only gotten worse since we arrived.  The winds have been steadily blowing out of the southwest, which continues to chop up the waves, and the rip current gets stronger by the day.  Yesterday morning as I paddled out, my surf partners stayed on the shore and watched as I pointed straight out but got so pushed by the winds that I made a diagonal path through the water.   By the time I made it to the outside, I was 300 yards down the beach. 

And that’s another thing - there really is no “outside” right now since the surf is so chopped up.  So even though I was sitting outside the area where most of the waves were breaking, the occasional one would break right on top of my sad little head.  This of course agitated me considerably, particularly the times that the waves actually picked me up and flipped me over - board and

all - before washing me back to shore…where I had to start my paddle out all over again.

Not.  Happy.

But like most good Irish women, I can get a little bull-headed, even when I know it makes WAY more sense to give up.  I really wanted to start catching my own waves, so I talked myself into believing that if I just paddled hard enough, I would be successful.   

So the session was essentially a repeat of the first morning: paddle-paddle-paddle, pop up, nada.  I’m left there standing on the board. 

I tried it over and over again for what seemed like half a day (though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t much over half an hour) and with each failed attempt, I got more and more angry.  As I would fall backwards off my non-moving board, I’d let out a guttural yell that would only stop when my head smacked the water.

Ted offered to help a couple of times but I felt like that contradicted what I was trying to do: be able to surf independently.  But he still stayed out with me (I think he was worried I was going to exhaust myself to the point of drowning) and decided to snap these telling photographs.

Two words: 

Epic.

Fail.

Paddle! Paddle! Paddle! - August 8, 2010

Before breakfast, Ted's daughter and I were going to go for a jog but we decided to check out the waves before we began our trod through the muggy morning air.  According to the surf report, not much of anything was forecasted for the entire week, but a stiff southeast wind began blowing during the night so we were hoping that would push up some waves by the next afternoon. 

She and I walked a block to the gulf and right where our street dead-ended was a home under construction.  We skirted around the concrete beginnings of what will soon be the pool of some lucky beachfront homeowner, then hoisted ourselves up onto their unfinished boardwalk. 

What we saw when we got to the top of the boardwalk was almost magical.  There were waves—clean, pretty, and most importantly, big enough to catch without a push from someone.  We couldn't believe our luck!  While the run would have been good, we decided to can it in favor of grabbing our rash guards and boards.

We ran back down the boardwalk and jumped off the back where the stairs will eventually be built.   As we were trucking through the dirt-filled construction zone, the building contractor turned into the driveway.  We must have looked so guilty—like a couple of kids who had just tried out a potato gun on their neighbor's back porch.  Luckily he didn't question our trespassing, so a short time later we were paddling out. 

Ted decided to work with his daughter as it had been several years since her last time on a board and she wanted a refresher.  Plus, now that I've been surfing for a few weeks and have gotten comfortable with the pop-up, I've could continue working on paddling into my own waves. 

Something I've learned about paddling for your own waves:  It's significantly harder to generate enough speed in order to get in front of the wave.  It's surprising how much edge someone's push can give you.  With that extra speed, all you really have to focus on is your pop-up and keeping your balance until the wave is over.  But when you don’t have enough speed going into a wave, most of them will pass you by and you'll end up looking like an idiot standing up on your board as the wave moves on without you. 



Looking from the shore, this is me, now standing, as the wave passes by.



This was pretty much the experience of the entire morning.  I was only able to catch one wave, and that was at the beginning of the session.  This was such a tease because it showed me I was in fact capable of doing it, I just wasn't capable repeating it.  I tried to keep my frustration at bay because I didn't want to come across completely childish, but as the morning went on, I became more exhausted—therefore less patient—and I had to move down the beach to avoid ruining the surf session for everyone else with my expletives.



I’ve really got to figure this out.