SURF’S UP!!!
When we were at the beach near Manuel Antonio National Park, we took sufing lessons! It was so fun! Molly, Dad, and I picked up our sufboards early Friday morning. I got a white one with blue stripes, Molly got a blue one, and Dad got a pink one! Two people from the surf shop came with us to teach. One of them helped Molly and one helped me. Dad was pretty much on his own, but that was ok, because on the first wave he stood up pefectly, longboard style ( stick straight, arms at his sides, feet planted close together one in front and one in back near the middle of the sufboard.) The way you are supposed to stand is crouched way down, knees bent, arms out for balance, feet spread way apart at either end of the sufboard. After that Dad was really on his own, paddling on his own and standing almost every time! The instructors could not believe he had never been on a surfboard before. Molly was doing really well, too. She got up after a few tries and stayed on for a long time; she opted for a stance somewhere between longboard and shortboard. I was the only one having a problem; on the first wave I could not stand up, I only got up on my knees. That kept happening, but finally I was able to stand up. When I first stood up, though, I fell off really quickly, and that happened a lot. When I was finally able to stand up the right way, totally shortboard, I went all the way to the beach, (yay!), then fell off. I was so happy! It was an amazing feeling. Mom said that I looked like I was concentrating really hard and looked very professional, but I did not feel that way, I don’t even think that I was watching where I was going. I felt like someone else was doing the work and I was just going for a ride. It felt really natural; maybe I was subconciously concentraiting.
A couple rides and falls later we found the perfect wave, and Molly and I both caught it and started at the exact same time! Molly got up a little faster, but we were almost even and were really close to each other. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, (I was still looking straight ahead) and at that same moment she turned her head and looked at me. Suddenly we both said, “Hi!”, and at that moment Mom snapped a picture! Actually, Mom took a lot of pictures, but we only put the best ones in the Media Gallery, so you won’t have to look at 500 some-odd pictures. On another wave, all three of us stood up, but Molly and I were too close together, so we fell off really quickly. Dad, who was further away, was watching us and fell before we did. That continued for the remainder of our hour-long session, but we did not catch another wave together. After the lesson, we were very tired, hungry and water-logged. All three of those things were quickly solved, though, because our teachers showed us the secret rainwater reservoir and we rinsed off and let the sun bake us dry ( very fast actually). There were many returaunts across the street, so soon we were full of fruit and then we spent the rest of the day lazing around the beach trying to stay in the shade, watching Mom get dreadlocks. Well, you have probably heard the saying “Pictures speak louder than words”, or “A picture is worth a thousand words”, so head on over to the Media Gallery and you will find a new album called “Surf’s Up”. Enjoy!