I am not a risk taker. Or a thrill seeker. I avoid getting hurt. Or doing anything that could get me hurt. Whatever injuries I have sustained are usually innocuous accidents due to my clumsiness. A little slipped-foot-layup here, or awkward-soccer-fall-twisty-fall there. The idea of doing something dangerous for the sheer thrill doesn’t appeal to me one bit.
Except when it comes to surfing.
I remember when the germ of the idea was planted. Standing outside a surf shop on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario. Baffled by the idea. “You can actually surf the lake?” I asked the owner. “Oh yeah, for sure,” he said. You’d need the right winds of course. And usually only in the autumn/winter months. But surfing, in my own backyard, on a fresh water lake, was possible. And something I never even considered remotely wanting to try. But the seed was planted. As summer moved on, and the fall approached, I got real curious. Watched the waves whenever I was near or around the beach. Took an extra side-step just to see the waters in bad weather. I kept thinking. Wondering. Dreaming. A couple seasons later, I started following lake surfers on social media. Watched Youtube highlights from Huron surf competitions. Started investigating the costs of boards and suits and lessons. And then, some years after that first introduction - I rented a board - and went for a go. Then I bought a board. Took a lesson. Popped up on my first try. Caught the stoke, as they say. Then I bought a suit. Went back to the same beach. Trying over and over again to catch as many waves as I could. But after the initial euphoria of those first few sessions “oh my gosh I’m really doing this” I realized something:
surfing is really hard.
Popping up (standing up on the board whilst riding a wave) takes an incredible amount of energy, balance, and timing. You have to know how to read the waves, their force, and power. Popping-up at just the right time so not to spill or fall or flail. Still, you have to be willing to get washed. Near drowned. And try again. But for all my effort I could only ever seem to pop-up on the whitewater. Waves that have already broken and are surging to shore. They are easier to catch. You don’t have to worry about gravity quite the same. It’s newbie territory. Catching greens, or unbroken waves, is a completely different challenge. Legit surfing. The kind of surfing you’d likely think of when you hear the word surfing.
But just getting to the greens, “at the back” it’s called, takes a herculean effort on its own. Powering through surging whitewater, to where the greens are, is no easy thing. Requiring will, paddle strength, and stamina. Especially when you’re lugging a heaving buoyant board like mine. When I recently wrote about trying too hard, it’s the green waves I was talking about. What I was trying too hard for. Opining after. Working tirelessly to catch. Dreaming of on the daily. With no success. And no reward.
Four seasons of surfing later, and I’d only ever caught two green waves. One was really small and the other one was kind of a fluke. I’ve never been able to repeat the feat.
Until last week.
I was out with my surfing buddy, Master Obi Wan. Wading at the Merb (Melmerby Beach) on the banks of the Northumberland. A mess of choppy lake-like-waves were breaking on shore. Nothing huge. But every so often a big roller would come in. We’d wade. Paddle. Pop up. And surf. Over and over again. For half the session I had been successfully catching smaller green waves. Little two footers. Approaching them as I would the whitewater. Popping-up, barreling straight towards the shore. No twists or cuts down the wave. We were over an hour in and with our wives and leg muscles tiring, we decided to chase “just one more!”
“I think you’re ready to go down the line!” Obi Wan yelled. Down the line. Surfer speak for popping-up and riding the breaking wave on an angle - down the line of the wave itself. “Here’s the one!” he shouted. I looked back at the rolling wall of water surging towards me. One of the larger green waves we’d seen all night. I paddled out. Angled in. Felt the power propel me forward. I popped up. Crouching low. Twisted my hips… and rode down the line.
“I can’t believe this is happening…” The feeling is near indescribable. I was gobsmacked. Baffled. Elated. I reached out my left hand and grabbed the whitewash staking my moment of claim. Conquerer of sea. Tamer of the wave.
Eight years in the making. From seed to bloom. Through trial and more error than I could possibly account for. Near dusk, on a mid-week-evening night, I passed on from padawan to legit surfer.
Dreams do come true… but it was no fluke.
…to be continued.
