Surfer Slat Rat!
This afternoon, while the Ski Boy was off being scholarly and lawyerly at the 9th Circuit Court Conference, I decided to partake of a tried and true trophy spouse activity - no, not a manicure/pedicure/facial/massage. Nope, I went surfing. Of course, it’s been 34 years since I last surfed but I did pretty well 34 years ago and I’m a good skier. I’ve spent the past two days scoping out the surf conditions from our hotel lanai, so I had an idea of the good spots - a little further out from shore - away from the mobs - but still with enough people around that I could have a clue about what was going on.
I rented a board - an 10 foot behemoth that all the haolie tourists ride - lugged it down to the water, walked it out a ways, then clambered aboard and started paddling. Ugh. It’s a lot of work paddling those things. Especially the big ones. I paddled and paddled, rested and then paddled some more. I finally made it out to my spot and sort of died splayed out my board. After a bit, I recovered enough to sit up and scope things out. First thing I noticed was that it was almost dead calm. A group of about ten of us were just sort of sitting around and waiting. And waiting.
Finally, the swells started to pick up - not enough to generate actual waves. But enough to trigger an event whose possibility hadn’t even dawned on me - seasickness. I started to feel very woozy. The whole situation was exacerbated by my lack of glasses - one can’t wear glasses when one surfs. And when one is as blind as I am, no glasses is a big deal. Especially when one bobs up with a swell and then bobs down with the swell. The bobbing rhythm in combination with a blurry Mr. Magoo view of the world flat did me in. I tried to tough it out, but it just got worse and worse. I gave up and started to head back in. And that’s when the waves finally showed up. By that point, I was way too wobbly to actually stand up but I was able to revisit that sense of riding a wave.
So, we’ll see if I’ll actually make another run at the surfing thing. I hate to give up. But I have to admit that I as write this post with our lanai door open, the rhythmic sound of surf hitting the beach is making me woozy all over again.
Hello. I am 
You are such a bad a$$!
Get back out there! So glad to hear you got your feet wet! Go get slammed and then tell me how you like it! My buddy is going to take me out of the Oregon coast and teach me how this summer….with a wetsuit that is…..it ain’t Lanai, but it’s home.