It was 7:30 in the morning at 26th street Manhattan Beach. The sun was slowly rising from behind the tall narrow homes. The beach was not the complete chaos that the later day crowds brought but the beach was full of joggers, dog walkers, bicyclists, and surfers. I clung to my longboard as I paddled out to the line. The waves were small but dumpy. It was the type of wave that looked like an easy ride because it was small, but the trough was low and the crest quickly peaked and dropped, slamming down anything in the wave. The only way two avoid getting eaten up by the wave was to angle the board into the drop. This is easy for an experienced surfer, but for a beginner like me it is a challenge.
I was sitting in the lineup with my boyfriend and his friends. They call themselves the Dump Rider Crew because they will pretty much go for anything and don’t mind taking a beating. Today was my day to join them in paying my dues to surfing and getting thrown by the waves. A small two foot bump was coming towards me, it looked small. I turned my board towards the shore and paddle slowly inching my board forward. I felt the wave coming behind me and paddle harder. The wave pushed past me and my weak arms could not keep up. I fell back, and the wave broke leaving me behind. I paddled back out to the lineup. “Don’t worry you’ll get the next wave,” my boyfriend said. Little did he know I was glad not to get the first one on account that I knew that the wave would have pushed the nose of my board down because of the quick paced vertical drop, and I would have rolled around in the wave scraping the bottom of the ocean floor. This was always my fear when I paddled out.
I didn’t know my boyfriend’s friends very well yet. While the Dump Rider Crew was catching up I was sitting off to the side staring at the horizon. A three foot bump rolled forward. I turned my board again paddling towards the shore. “Paddle, paddle!” I heard to my right. I looked over to see a little girl about eight or nine years old being pushed into a wave by her father.
She was clinging to a blue Costco foam longboard. Her little hands did not move, but gripped the edges of the board tightly. Her eyes were wide with her mouth agape. She looked how I felt inside. The wave began pushing my board. I angled it down the line and pushed myself to my feet. My cheeks pushed up and I felt my lips peal back allowing my teeth to show. My heart raced in excitement as I rode the wave. This is why surfers take so many beatings in the water because finally standing up and riding the wave, as simple a task as it sounds, feels like such a great accomplishment. When the wave turned to white wash I plopped down on my board and paddled out. Another wave came, but I was too tired from paddling to catch it. “Paddle, paddle!” The little girl was being pushed into another wave by her father.
She clung to the board with that wide eyed blank expression as the wave passed her by. “Are you even paddling?” her father said.
“Yes,” she answered and then looked at me, for I knew the truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment