With a few days left with our visitors we took a little drive to Punta de Mita beach this afternoon, ate some lunch and then made our way out to the waves for a surf. According to rumors around the beach today, there is another big swell headed our way this weekend, well, count me out. The pictures below look pretty tame, so i’ll explain them one by one, then how the day actually finished, at least for me.

Waiting patiently for the first wave. We aren’t the only ones out here today, there’s about half a dozen surfers to our right, all more experienced than us. We’re trying to make our positions in between the huge jetty to the left, and the rock bed underneath the surf to the right, while trying to stay out of people’s way.

This is the end of Josh’s ride, but look behind him…there’s more where that came from…

I decided to take this one on the belly, it was a good ride, but a bit of a waste. The pelican thought it was good too.

Ok, so I finally stood up for one, and rode it for a bit, but that was about the end of my luck. The jetty got closer and closer and the waves kept coming, big ones. One after another I kept getting pelted in the head by huge waves, and without enough time to get back on my board to paddle away from the rocks. I think I tried pretty much everything to get out of the trap, on the board, off the board, sideways, head on, under the water, and finally there was a break so i paddled with all i had left, panting and draining stinging salt water from every oriphace on my head.  It was my first real fight with the salty enemy that has since treated me so well. I paddled into the shore, and by mistake washed myself (and my board) right  into the sand. With no damage to my board, just my confidence, I pouted over to the shower for a rinse before collapsing on my towel in the shade. Done for the day. On that note, Josh’s dad was keen to have his first attempt at “paddling a surfboard” as he called it, meaning no waves were caught but he won the fight and made it back to shore in one piece after a few nobel attempts. Josh ran into Antonio (who gave us lessons last year in the same location) and hinted that we might be looking for some more tips. I can tell you i’ll be waiting until that swell is long gone before i’ll be out there again. I don’t mind sitting out there for minutes on end waiting for a good one.