Early Memories

I was inspired by pranaglider's latest blog post to write about my own early surfing memories.

I recall going on vacation with a friend to a condo on the beach in Coronado, San Diego. We had cheap bodyboards but no fins. We were in grammer school, and I wasn't a good swimmer when I was that young, and the surf was not small. Regardless, we spent hours trying to walk/hop/swim/paddle our bodyboards through the lines of whitewater. We were never successful in getting through the broken waves. After what felt like a long time, so was probably about 20 mins., we would agree to give up and go in. The sand was boring so we would return to the water several more times each day, trying our best, but never succeeding. Nothing to show for it but raw nipples.

I recall my dad taking me and that same friend to "The Jetty" in Half Moon Bay. The waves were smaller and easier and we could walk out to where they first flopped over. We rode waves strait to the beach until we were to cold to continue. We had so much fun we convinced our other friends to buy cheap bodyboards and come with us. This opened up more parents to drive us, more friends to frolic with, and the fun continued through high school. By high school it was a tangent to the "real" surfing I was doing, but I never missed an opportunity to go ride waves up onto the sand with my friends.

The best part of those early days at The Jetty was my dad could park at the water's edge and watch us. Watching us play in the waves stirred his memories of surfing back before his career, kids, and the Vietnam War tore him from his carefree high school life. He borrowed a way-to-small funboard and took a trip to Santa Cruz with a coworker who surfed. He didn't invite, or even tell me, what he was doing. I understand now that he didn't know if his body, wrecked by a desk job, alcohol, and smoking could survive the ocean.

He barely survived, but found his old stoke. I come back into the story when we bought wetsuits, the longest boards we could find (pre-longboard resurgence) and started making trips to Santa Cruz every weekend. He got healthy and I got stronger and the rest is for another time...