Surfing 101

Living within 2 miles of the beach for the last four years, you would think, according to Southern California stereotypes, that I'd be going surfing every morning.  I don't even own my own board (or corresponding wetsuit for the chilly California coastal waters)!

I'm always excited to try new sports, and Surfing is no exception.  Sure I've rented a board before and tried on my own, I've been out with friends that have boards and tried and tried again.  At least I'm persistent right??  Do I at least get an A for effort?

When I learned that our friend from England was sending her daughter to visit for a couple of weeks, I felt that was the PERFECT opportunity to get in on a surfing lesson, so at the last minute on Friday  I called around to a few places, and found Learn to Surf LA which does group lessons for $75 per person including board and wetsuit rental for the lesson (nearly 2 full hours!).  I managed to round up a few more friends (one a fellow blogger on Get Out!) who were excited about learning to surf.

After leaving the South Bay area an hour before our 2:15 lesson was to start.....we finally arrived at Santa Monica guard tower 18.....at 2:30 PM.  It was a miserable drive up the 1, you'd think I would know better than to try to drive up PCH to get anywhere......at all......after all this time!

The four of us poured into our wetsuits, the process of which takes the "pants dance" to a whole 'nutha level, as quickly as we could.  I helped our guest and one of my friends into their suits after securing mine on me.  My suit fit really nice, a little big in the bum and legs though, as is typical of mens suits....oh well.  We did the whole pushup-pop-up routine on the beach, and finally the instructor declared we were ready to get in the water.  The guys got up right away, but never got up again.  We all caught a few waves, I think we even all got up on our knees!

After 2 hours of being tossed around on the waves Kiefer Coleslaw joined us (after a 20 mile bike ride up the strand!) to meander around 3rd Street.  We walked through in a daze, and finally ended up getting Pizza for dinner.  We briskly walked through the newly rennovated Santa Monica Mall before returning to our car.  Then the 6 of us crammed into my frontier (eep!) and headed home.  After unloading the truck of beach gear and a road bike Kiefer and our other poster (yet without a handle) tinkered with my road bike (which is currently havign trouble handling the triple front chainrings.....it really wants there to only be 2).

Finally to round out the evening we headed to Menchie's to fill up on fro-yo, YUM!  The bonus is they charge by weight, so i can get very little yogurt, and some toppings, and Kiefer can FILL his yogurt bowl to over flowing!


All in all a great adventure.  I love trying new things, what did you try this weekend?