The Board-Related Water Sport I'm Good At!

After Rebecca and I swam 3000 yards on Saturday morning (because we're fabulous), we went to the beach so Jason, Tad and I could take a surfing lesson.  A Grouponed surfing lesson, of course, because that's how we do things in our house. 

I just have to say, it was a PERFECT beach day.  Maybe it was a little cool for some people, but as the person who is always hot, I loved it being in the 70s.  When the sun came out it was nice and toasty.  Even though the water was a little chilly at first, it warmed right up once you got moving. 

So our lesson consisted of: here's where your chin goes when you're on your stomach, here's where your feet go when you pop up, let's pop up twice, ok, let's hit the water!  Um...  I do not feel prepared...

I suppose, though, there really isn't that much to it.  You just have to go for it.  We had some nice waves due to a tropical storm passing by off the coast.  Everyone mocks East Coast waves, but there can be some pretty great surfing conditions in southern Rhode Island, depending on the weather. 

I managed to get on my board and sail into shore on my stomach twice, without it even occurring to me to try to pop up onto my feet.  Baby steps.  I spent the rest of the time wrestling my board and trying to get back out to where the waves were breaking. 

So, I know I need to lose some weight, Mr. Surfing Instructor*, but I'm still only 5' 6" and I suspect that the board you gave me was way too big.  I had the same size board as 6' 4" Tad.  Yeah.

After 40 minutes of getting dunked and rolled around by the waves, while the leash on my board chafed my ankle, I decided I had gotten my Groupon's worth and I was done.  Jason immediately snatched my board because he thought he needed a bigger one, which he did because he's six inches taller than me, and I went to go chat with Rebecca and watch the guys surf.  They did pretty well.

Back to the subject of this post though.  As you've probably guessed, the board-related water sport I'm good at is not surfing.  It's also not stand up paddle boarding, which I've tried and once I got over the weak ankles-related searing pain in my calves and finally felt stable, I enjoyed, but thought it was too slow.  We paddled on a river that we've kayaked on several times and I missed the speed of the kayak.**

It's boogie boarding!  Seriously, I'm kind of sad beach season is basically over and I probably won't be able to boogie board again, because it's awesome.  All of my summers spent wave jumping at the beach in Florida have made me pretty good at reading what a wave is going to do, and I managed to ride the crest of some fantastic big waves that carried me all the way into shore.  After church yesterday, I was kind of thinking maybe we should head to the beach for the afternoon, but I decided to be all practical and get stuff done around the house.  Lame.

I am SORE today, though.  Actually, Saturday night my right shoulder was sore, and I thought maybe I had done too much pulling when we swam that morning.  But yesterday evening I started getting really sore in my chest and arms, like I had done a bunch of push ups, and I still hurt today.  When I think about how I propped myself up on the boogie board for an hour or so that makes sense.  In contrast to push ups, boogie boarding is about seventeen million times more fun, and totally worth the pain.



*Who, by the way, had one leg and was teaching surfing, which means he's pretty much the most awesome person ever.  We decided that if it wasn't a shark, he needs to say it was a shark.

** Between the Alpine Slide and the boogie boarding, I think this summer has been about discovering I'm a closet speed junkie.