Sand and surf

This afternoon, Cathy and I tried our hand at surfing. Neither of us had ever tried it. She was a little hesitant but I got her to go along anyway. Both of us figured we ought to try it at least once while we're here. Cathy is a funny sort, enjoying the quirkiness and campiness of Sámara and being as casual as she can be in her first ever pair of flip-flops, all the while donning a Bulgari necklace and Movado watch. She works crazy hours and is going through a divorce right now, so everyone in her family (and even her soon-to-be ex-husband) told her a trip to Sámara was exactly what she needed. We sauntered over to Jesse's Gym and Surf School about a kilometer east of Intercultura. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when the tide was high enough to get some good waves.

The instructors started us out on the beach practicing how to lie on the surfboard, then hop into the surfing stance once you find a wave. The foot position is very specific – front foot in the middle of the board with your feet shoulder width apart – and you've only got one chance to hop onto the board. Of course, jumping into the stance is a very different exercise on water than on land. It took me a few times before I got it right. The first few times, we started with our instructors pushing us forward as a good wave was passing by. I started to get into a little groove after three or four attempts. Then we had to try paddling ourselves forward as the wave was coming before hopping on the board. This was hard, as it never felt like I was paddling strong enough to match the speed of the wave. Timing your stance with the front of the wave is hard, too. Then we had to learn how to swim ourselves out into the water and turn back toward shore as the wave was coming. It's a very complex sport that requires a lot of coordination, although Cathy and I both had a few successes. But both of us knew we still had a lot to learn, and today was not the day. By the end of our lesson, it was drizzling pretty hard and even though we still had the surfboards for another hour we decided it was time to go back to shore.