Finally Surfing

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I grew up in inland San Diego county which sounds idyllic except the truth is that even though the beach was 12 miles as the crow flies I might as well have lived in Nebraska because as a kid we rarely got to the beach.   I grew up skateboarding as a proxy for surfing even though in my heart I knew surfers were the cool guys and me and my crew fell more into the skate punk category.  

When I turned 16 and I got my first car the first destination was the thrift store to buy a second hand surfboard.  I had a few requirements: 

1. Has to be under $40 because that's all the money I had

2. Has to look cool.  Doesn't matter if its impossible to ride, if you don't look cool then whats the point?

2a. One thing with a $40 surfboard is that its probably going to be old and the old ones are usually yellow instead of white so this was the real challenge.  By yellow I don't mean they used to make them yellow but they start a gleaming white and then they age like a smokers lung.

3. There wasn't a 3rd criteria

I spent a lot of my free time "surfing" in La Jolla.  The 52 freeway was brand new and made the trip a lot shorter so being a surfer was a real option.  So "surfing" often times meant driving to the beach and

1. No waves - paddle out sit there a while and try to catch a tiny wave only to paddle your arms off and realize that you need a longboard not a coolish looking $40 thrift shop board - Oh well go get a burrito and head back to the Valley.

2. Closed out - this means you walk out to the beach and the entire wave crashes at the same time rather than peeling from right to left or vice versa - Oh well go get a burrito and head back to the Valley.

3. Surfing! - This was about 1 in 4 trips to the coast for me.  Whether alone or with friends this usually resulted in several near drownings, falling on a surboard (feels as good as it sounds) and epic sinus clearing wipeouts.   In the two years of owning that junker surfboard I caught one wave.  I felt like the heavyweight champion of the world, double arm fist pumping surfer dude.   A real surfer would laugh at that moment because it was all whitewash but dammit I was standing on a board and headed for the shore so I am counting that shit!

Fast forward 21 years and they now make mini surfboards so you can surf behind a boat.  Wakesurfing is an absolute blast!  As with many things in life that you wanted so badly in your youth, time and technology provides as an adult.

Let's Go Surfing!