Thursday proved to be a rough day for me...I woke up with a splitting headache from the wine the night before. Squeezing into a cold, drenched wet suit only made the start to the morning worse. Regardless, I was ready to surf again. Thursday morning was my 5th surf lesson. After warm ups and stretching, we were taught how to make it out to the back of the last breaking waves in order to surf on the green waves.
We were taught how and where to balance our bodies on our boards as we paddled out. Also, with the less powerful whitewash we could do a sort of push up on our boards in order to keep up speed while making our way further out in the ocean. Then we were taught Eskimo rolls. I honestly didn't even attempt these because I was too afraid to try it. Basically, when the bigger whitewash was about to hit you, you would grab onto the sides of your board, hug it tightly, and roll sideways with the board under the wave. This sounded like a recipe for disaster to me. Finally, when you needed to get through a wave just before its about to break, we were taught how to spear our boards through the wave. And of course then we had the basics about how to actually ride the green waves.
I was unsure as to whether or not I wanted to attempt to make it out to the back. So I just practiced on whitewash first. I was very flattered when Ben complimented my pop-up, saying that it was spot-on. That was just the sort of boost of confidence I needed to take a step forward.
I decided today was the day to graduate from whitewash waves to the big green waves. I may have been a bit naive because the waves breaking looked absolutely gigantic. I went for it anyways. I got past the weak whitewash with my push-ups. I got through the rougher whitewash by pushing my board over. No Eskimo rolls. Then I waited for a lull in the waves. I hopped on my board and puddled like mad so I didn't even need to spear my board either. Then it was calm.
I caught my breath and just sat on my board on top of the surging waves. It was very peaceful. Then Glen, the typical lean, tan, long-blond-haired surf instructor encouraged me to catch the next wave. I had to quickly lie down, turn around, and start paddling.
Before I knew it the wave was on top of me. It felt like I was under the water for ages. My board pulled my body forward as it was dragged by the other waves. I came up for air for only a second when another wave came crashing down on me. The previous scenario happened all over again. Under water for an eternity. Dragged along by my board. Terrified. I came up for air again, my heart pounding, gasping for air. I grabbed my board and started pushing forward. I repeatedly got hit by waves but none like the first two.
Finally I made it to shallow water, exhausted and panic-stricken. I remember thinking I never wanted to do that again. My mind checked-out of surfing for the morning. I was still a bit shaken up at lunch. For the afternoon session I just worked on turning in the whitewash. I wanted to play it safe.
My mood improved just in time for dinner. That Thursday night it was Lasagna so we were all pretty stoked. After dinner we had a relatively quiet night. We sat around the fire because it was extremely cold and windy. There was plenty of good conversation, ranging from talking about different jobs people held while in Australia to family demographics at home. I was sad knowing I only had one day left.
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