Celebrating Surfing

Wednesday morning I was already walking down the dock to my 3rd surfing lesson.   I had been hanging out with two German girls named Yuan and Maren, as well as an English girl named Ashleigh.  We sort of formed our own group.

Today we had a new instructor: Ben. He had crazy blue eyes that Yuan fell in-love with.  I felt that he was a bit more serious than Josh and Colin but he was a good instructor regardless.  His warm ups were also more intense than the other instructors.  As a smoker, even going for a jog was exhausting, but the jog and stretching really got you loosened up for surfing.

The more you surfed, the quicker you could pop-up, the cleaner your movements got, the more you wanted to be out on the water. In the afternoon session, we began doing conditions checks.  We were taught to examine the wind, the waves, and the tide. For the wind, you'd hope for an off-shore wind. Otherwise the waves would be very rough and choppy.

In regards to the waves, you had to be able to tell which types of waves they were: spilling or dumping.  Also, you would want to recognize the actual size of the wave because you wouldn't want to take on a wave above your ability.

Finally, the tide.  If the tide was low, typically you would see more dumping than spilling waves and vice versa if the tide was high.  We had two solid days of a very high tide and it was incredible how powerful the water could be.

Overall I had a very successful day surfing so I was in the mood to finally have a few drinks.  Finally I felt like being social, and met quite a few people. Mostly Germans.  There were tons and tons and tons of Germans at Spot X, all in the middle of their own crazy adventures.  Lukas was a German spending his last month in Coffs Harbor but he had been in Australia for almost a year.  Izzy was also a German just on holiday before she had to go back to Germany for an apprenticeship.  Matt was an Englishman who was doing his farm work for his second year visa nearby.  He hung out most of the night with us and we went wading in the ocean.  We sat up till like 2 in the morning smoking cigarettes and listening to music.  Spot X was like heaven.