jactrades: Mole from Arrested Development (Default)
[personal profile] jactrades
I got back from my week of surf camp last Friday, and then spent most of the weekend passed out.

It. Was. So. Awesome.

Despite being a water fiend in general, I never had much of a chance to surf when I was a kid (I raced sailboats with my dad instead). The few times I have gotten out on a board have been some of the best hours of my life, no joke. So when we moved back to California from DC, I decided I was going to take up surfing as my sport of choice. Thus, surf camp.

Wake up. Eat a delicious healthy breakfast. Three-minute walk to the beach. Bit of yoga. Surf all morning. Eat a delicious healthy lunch (Avocado overload? Yes please.). Nap. Snack on some fruit. Bit more yoga. Surf all late afternoon/early evening. Eat a delicious healthy dinner. Sleep under the stars.

I feel like I've simultaneously gone through a detox, boot camp (I am still sore), and hippie spiritual retreat ("let's all just chill on the waves for a bit and watch the dolphins, dudes"). Yeah, dolphins (I'm on the green board):



Every morning there were dolphins playing in the waves, sometimes no more than ten feet from us. You could stick your head under the water and hear the whistles and clicks.

That photo is from the second day. Oh god, the second day. It was the worst - my arms were just jelly. Luckily we still had smaller waves (around 4 ft.) that day, so I didn't get punished too hard by the waves for paddling like a ninny and taking ten minutes to pop up on the board.

This sequence of shots pretty much encapsulates the morning session of the second day:






My arms started to get with the program by the third day, which was good because we had eight and ten feet swells for the rest of the week (along with the typical Santa Cruz fog). If I'd still been getting up slowly on that size waves, well, I'd have been swallowing a lot more salt water. As it was, there were some pretty epic wipe outs. (And, oh, the lovely schadenfreude of just making it over a surprise monster wave before it broke, and then looking back and seeing everyone, including our instructors, just wiped off the map.)

Anyways, I'm so addicted. Watch out wetsuit tan lines, here I come.

(I did sneak out of the camp one day to post my [livejournal.com profile] trekreversebang fic, and that Starbucks latte, pastry, & wifi were pretty damn fab so I'm not quite ready to go live a proper beach bum lifestyle. Yet.)

Date: 2011-06-29 12:32 pm (UTC)
ext_375859: (Floating Girl)
From: [identity profile] izzyfics.livejournal.com
Oooh, that does sound awesome! I bet you feel really good right now after a week like that (fun exercise + healthy food + relaxation).

Date: 2011-06-29 04:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] janus-74.livejournal.com
That looks like a lot of fun :) I wouldn't mind doing some sort of hippy retreat....just minus the being in the deep water part.

Date: 2011-06-30 01:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] janus-74.livejournal.com
Not a fan of deep water and the things that might be in it :). Shallow wave jumping is okay, but I get a little freaked out if I can't touch the bottom.

Date: 2011-06-29 11:42 pm (UTC)
ext_51201: (Default)
From: [identity profile] anodyna.livejournal.com
Oh my gosh, that looks so fun! And dolphins, how awesome. It sounds like a great experience.

(I'm wondering about wetsuit tan lines. Don't wetsuits kind of cover your whole body? I'm picturing someone with like two inches of tanned ankle. "Yeah, he's a surfer, I can tell by his ankles.")

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