This morning we got up reasonaly early and went surfing. I checked the web surf reports to check the size before we went out, and it said about 1.5 feet until noon. Despite this puney wave size, my stomach was queasy and I think I peed about 5 times before we left due to anxiety. I’m such a woosey!
It was a pretty good hike with an 8 foot surfboard each, about 4 blocks to get to the beach. We managed to not take out any pedestrians along the way and thankfully it wasn’t terribly hot and the boards weren’t too heavy. We stashed our cheapy new Hawaii sandals and our t-shirts, wrapped up in an inexpensive towel we purchased for this purpose and headed out.
Unfortunately the break is pretty far out from the beach on Waikiki, which means when you haven’t surfed in 10 months, its quite the paddle just to get out there. Also, the break stops coming in at a certain point so you can’t just surf to get back in all the way either! Josh and I stick to different parts of the surfer group.
Josh likes to be smack dab in the centre of people, where the wave breaks best, and everyone wants it… Me, I like to stay a bit off to the side where I’m not directly in the line of fire, even if I have to wait a bit longer for a decent wave. We both were pretty lucky though and I think we caught some of the same waves (or at least in the same set) only about 30-40 feet apart. The good waves were more like 2 feet which was nice to see some a tad larger. It was a bit crowded even in my section, with about a dozen riders, and a couple SUP’s. I had a wave stolen from me a couple of times, and I backed off one or two that someone else had. Overall the atmosphere was relxed and the riders were friendly, most were beginners like me, or newer.
After surfing, we relaxed on the beach for a while, to catch some sun. I semi-lobstered a bit on the arms during surfing where I rolled up the sleeves on my long-sleeved rashi, without putting sunscreen underneath. Then there’s the blotchy legs and belly from inadequate sunscreen application. It always seems to happen to me.
Josh is requesting more surfing tomorrow, the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Oh boy.