Surf Stoke

My dreams of being a surfer girl are finally happening! Since I was 13 and saw Blue Crush, I've been obsessed with learning to surf. Sad, I know, but also kind of awesome. I grew up playing all sorts of sports and I've always had a passion for board sports, ten years of snowboarding and wakeboarding will do that to you. Given this extensive experience, I expected to take to surfing like a duck to water. My first experience was a year ago in Hawaii, where Chris and I and our good friends took a private lesson in the famed Hanalei Bay of Kauai's North Shore. I suited up in my Blue Crush Billabong rashie and excitedly paddled out for my first surf experience. Much to my dismay I didn't stand up on my first wave. However I got the hang of it by the end of the lesson. Until I spent 15 minutes bobbing around waiting for the next set of waves and seasickness hit me like a wall. I literally had to go lay on the beach and try not to vomit. This was very distressing to me and I vowed my next surf trip would be accompanied by copious amounts of Dramamine.

One year later, in Byron Bay Australia, the surf dream is officially real. But I'm jumping ahead. In September, three weeks before our departure for a Year of Awesomeness - and surfing! - in Australia we attended our favorite local show, the amazing Dave Matthews Band live at the Gorge. We hit the winery, and then I hit a pothole right inside the entrance to the Gorge and broke my ankle. Oopsie. So my dream was sadly postponed for our first few weeks in Australia, through countless hostels with free surf board hire, until we hit Byron Bay and I felt like my ankle could finally handle some action. Of course our hostel here does not offer free surf hire. After many, many words of caution from relatives and friends (we won't rat you out) regarding sharks, rip tides, jellies and the like, I decided it would be smart to invest in a surf lesson. Chris and I both did great, like riding a bike. We stood, we balanced, we surfed.

Chris goes surfing - this is the rental

Surfing with our buddies

A few days later, we went across the street and rented a few boards for five days. The plan: surf every day and have the time of our lives. I got a 7'9" board, seven inches shorter than the board I rode at my lesson, but I'm trying to work my way to short board so I can ride with the cool kids. I know this takes time, but I have no patience. Over the course of our first week of surfing, we got steadily better, swallowed a few gallons of ocean, and became five shades darker (yes, Mom, we were wearing sunscreen). We had surf stoke. Giving our boards back at the end of the week was sad, but equally awesome because we'd decided we loved surfing so much we wanted to buy our own boards. It's expensive to rent, roughly $10-18 per day depending on where you go and how many days you book the board for. Since we plan on surfing every day, it's just smarter to buy a secondhand board. Most of the local shops have buy-back programs where you get half your money back when you sell your board to them before leaving town (given it's in good shape). Awesome.

That tiny, tiny dot is me surfing!

We shopped around for a few days, educated ourselves, and came to the sad realization that finding a used long board is really difficult. There are hundreds of used short boards - but that's just not a good place to start surfing. The short boards move faster, but you have to paddle harder to catch a wave, and they're difficult to balance on if you're new to the sport. We expected a surf board to cost about the same as a snowboard, and sadly they're much more expensive. A good used longboard will run you $380-700 depending on size and make. Many of the local surf shops have starter packages for around $500 that includes your board, bag, leash and fins. But do your research and make sure you're not getting a board made in China by guys who've never seen the ocean. We were warned of this at every shop.

My first surfboard!

We heard about this magical place called Industrial Estate, just outside of Byron, where there are lots of local board shapers. So took to the street and walked 35 minutes in the heat of the day to find surf boards. We shopped a few places and settled on Munro Surfboards. Brett Munro himself came out of his shop covered in sawdust and wearing his surgical mask. He shook our hands and told us about his business, shaping custom boards for 35 years (fact: it takes two-three weeks to shape a board). He had a good selection of "loved" boards and I was immediately drawn to this 7'2" cutie pie, all blue with a flower on the front. It's a local Kempo board, hand shaped in the Gold Coast of Australia. This was my board. I happily carried it all the way home, skipping like I just got my first car. It will, in fact, be my first ride :)

Chris was super jealous and we hit the streets again the next day to find him a board. He needed something a little longer than what I got and it's impossible to find - so we got one of the new board package deals. While his board is pretty short for him (at 7'6"), it's got a lot of volume (almost 3" thick) and is very wide, which is forgiving in the water and helps you stay afloat.

We've been riding our boards for almost a week now and love them. It took two-three days to adjust to the shorter size and get our balance back, but now we're looking toward bigger waves and having fun because we can surf instead of just balance. Suh-weet!

If you haven't figured out yet, surf stoke is the feeling you get when you know you're about to shred waves, & the feeling you get when you get home and know you shredded. Or when you have dreams about surfing before or after a day out on the water, and when you go to bed at night after a day of surfing and you still feel like you're riding your board. So yes, I have surf stoke. And I hope it never wanes.