A Day to Give Thanks - November 25, 2010

What a day to give thanks!  It’s unseasonably warm for late November and the sky was the deepest, clearest blue today that you could ask for.  The water temp is now somewhere in the mid-70s, so it was perfect for our new wetsuits. 

Ted’s youngest daughter came in town for the holiday but our family dinner at my dad and stepmom’s house didn’t start until 3:00.  That gave us plenty of time for a morning session before we needed to get in the kitchen to prepare our dishes.  So we loaded up our boards and drove down to the state park. 

We were not by any means the only people with this idea – all the local surfers and stand-up paddle boarders were out in the water, and everyone had the same goofy grin.  The three of us quickly realized why when we looked at the waves.  They were slow lefts, meaning they closed out slowly from right to left rather than breaking all at once soon after they built tall enough to ride.  These are the conditions that make for the long rides that surfers absolutely covet.  More importantly for my skill level, the waves weren’t too big but yet they were powerful, so they were super easy to get up on. 

We had a blast watching the soul surfers – many of whom were around when surfing first emerged along our coastline – come by us on their long boards.  It was beautiful to see their classic wave rider style: standing tall on the board, close to the nose, with the front foot extended out like a graceful dancer.  The boards themselves were works of art.  One man had a wooden board akin to those of the 1950s when the sport was first gaining popularity.  Sharing waves with these soul surfers made me appreciate this wonderful hobby all the more. 

Just before calling it a day (there was pear salad and minced meat pie to make!), the three of us all spotted the same wave.  We had been chatting in our own little lineup away from the crowd when we saw this perfect wave slowly approaching from the horizon.  Almost in unison, we turned our boards to face the beach, dropped to our bellies, and started paddling.  Usually when several surfers all vie for the same wave, only one or two end up catching it; it’s just the way it goes.  For us though, the heavens had another plan.  All three of us caught this beautiful, clean wave and when we each realized that the other two had the same fortune, we squealed with delight (okay, maybe not Ted, but he was pretty freaking stoked too).  We were grinning from ear to ear, cheering each other on all the way to the beach.  It was amazing…a wave that we’ll never forget.

What a great way to spend Thanksgiving Day morning.

Wetsuit Time - November 12, 2010

I made it half-way through the fall without a wetsuit, and if it were left up to me, Thrifty Thelma, I’d see if I could push it to Christmas.  However, as the weeks went by, Ted noticed that I was shivering more and more during our sessions and he could probably hear my teeth chattering over the wind and the waves.  So to the surf shop we went.

My only other experience with a wetsuit was during high school swim practice in the late fall when a teammate brought a few suits to the pool.  There were no other takers when she offered them up, so I figured I’d give it a shot. 

With no instruction, I inefficiently began yanking it on.  By the time I finally had it up and zipped, I was not only exhausted (who knew it’d be this hard??), I was uncertain that it was the best fit.  I had to wait for my teammate to finish her warm up – that’s how long it took me to get it on – to ask her if the weird fit was due to the fact that it was her brother’s wetsuit. 

“Zipper goes in the back, Maureen,” she told me before she pushed off the wall to begin her next set of laps.

Huh.  That’s a simple fix – by the time I get this off and then back on again, swim practice will only be half over.

So I was a little nervous about getting back into a wetsuit, but luckily my experience at Mr. Surf’s wasn’t nearly as trying as the Mosley High School pool deck in 1998.  The clerk at the surf shop gave me a plastic bag to put my foot in before stepping through the leg of the suit to reduce the friction.  It worked like a charm and with a few other tips for getting into and out of a wetsuit (peel it off, don’t pull it off), I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which the whole thing went down. 

I tried on two and ended up selecting a wonderfully stretchy 3/2 full suit.  The 3/2 measurement is in reference to the thickness in millimeters – it’s three around the core and two through the arms and legs.  That way, it’s a good blend of warmth where you need it most, and mobility everywhere else.

Next up was my boyfriend, who wanted to replace his old wetsuit.  Now, if I knew the spectacle that was about to ensue, I would have brought the camera.  He chose three suits to try on but for some reason, he seemed hurried to get through each one (note, putting on a wetsuit is not something you should rush).  It probably didn’t help that more than one attendant knocked on his fitting room door to make sure he didn’t need anything.  While they were just being attentive, I think it may have contributed to his rushing.

He liked the first two options, so he tried them both on one more time to make a decision.  Now the attendants were gathering around his door making small talk and trying to be helpful.  When he had the first one back on, he stepped out to show us…and that’s when I saw it, the pervasive beads of sweat that so frequently crop up just below his hairline.  He’ll start to sweat over just about anything.  Even eating something spicy will do it (and by “spicy,” I don’t mean a level of heat only found in a place like Goa, even a slice of pepper jack will get him cranking).  To borrow the words of my college roommate’s father, he has an “efficient cooling system.”

By the time he put back on the third option (so his fifth wetsuit donning of the day), he was sweating so much that the store owner actually asked him if he was okay.  He of course responded in a manner so nonchalantly that, if you were speaking to him over the phone and didn’t see his face becoming more flushed with each passing minute, you’d think he was lounging on the sofa watching The Masters.

As he continued posturing with this passé demeanor discussing the pros and cons of the two finalists, the number of attendants “helping” him was steadily growing (I guess news of The Sweater, had gotten around the shop).  But Ted’s not one to wilt under pressure.  Almost as though to make a point, he continued to weigh his choices until he eventually decided on the last suit he had on.  I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief when he went back into the dressing room to take off the neoprene insulation.

He must have really made an impression because they remembered him a few weeks later.  He was in the store to rent a suit for his daughter when the owner approached him.  He said something along the lines of, “Hey man, were you ok?  I’ve never seen someone get so overheated from trying on a wetsuit before.”

Not overheated, just efficiently processing the heat.

His Quicksilver and my Roxy 3/2 wetsuites