The Californians Go SurfingWe tried to surf our first day in Surfers Paradise. Natasha’s been living in San Diego for over three years and has become an avid surfer since I met her (she was an Environmental Science major from a Seattle suburb when I met her—now she’s a full blown ecologist with a California driver’s license living minutes away from the beach). The man at the surf shop—a hole in the wall type of place—told us the surf was incredibly dangerous that day with a strong rip current and large waves. Natasha had watched the waves earlier and thought we’d be fine. She tried telling him we were just going to surf the whitewash since I hadn’t surfed much. Once he heard that, he decided I definitely shouldn’t get in the water with a board. Having a local, who looked like he’d been surfing for longer than I’d been alive, say the water was too dangerous for me made me confident I was not surfing until conditions were better. We swam instead. The waves were breaking over our heads at times and the current was strong, but looking back it wasn’t that bad. There was even a surf school out. I think the guy at the shop just didn’t feel like renting out more boards. We surfed on our last day in Surfers Paradise. Natasha surveyed the ocean and we went to a different place to rent the boards. The guy there was much friendlier and didn’t make me feel like I was going to drown, so we set off with two foam boards. It was so much fun. The guy at the shop said we’d only be out there for 30 minutes but we surfed for almost the full 2 hour rental period (where I did get sunburned unfortunately). I got up maybe 10 times or so and wasn’t able to do much, but I still loved it.
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