Monday, September 25, 2006

We came. We shredded. We crashed.

I have this tendency to open my mouth when I'm doing something difficult. I don't talk, necessarily; I just open it. Maybe to relieve the pressure in my brain. I opened my mouth a lot during our surfing lesson, and perhaps that's why I swallowed a fair amount of ocean water, but it didn't matter because we were having so much fun.


The ocean off Kuta is a perfect playground for beginning surfers: the waves are big enough to give you a ride, but there aren't a lot of sharp rocks or other nasty things to cut yourself on, and it's so shallow you can just walk out instead of paddling. ("I hate paddling," said our teacher Nyoman in his charming Balinese-Australian accent. "It's so tiring.")


For beginner lessons they use these big foam boards that are very forgiving, so it was pretty easy to scramble up there and start catching waves. The real boards are a little more difficult, as we discovered when we rented one the next day. But that didn't dampen our enthusiasm. We are surfers now.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the family surfing club! Erin and Molly both took a surfing lesson in Kauai this summer. They absolutely loved it. I'll attempt to forward photos and videos of their efforts...

Trish said...

Yes, do! I bet they were great, with their ski experience and their love of the water. We'll all have to go sometime.

Anonymous said...

You are so cool. Is this one of the places where we could come to visit with you?? Looks like fun. Do they have locals who stake out their surfing turf?? Are there wayward beach bums hanging about from various places around the world?

Trish said...

Ohmigod, Mary, you would so love Bali. I was thinking about you and Michele, who also loves oceans, the whole time.

There are definitely wayward beach bums. Aussies, Kiwis, Japanese, Dutch, Indonesians. We weren't sure if people were staking out surf spots; we just tried to stay out of everybody's way. The day we rented our own board, most of the people out there seemed like newbies too, so we were all just falling off - or failing to get on - together.

Anonymous said...

bali sounds fantastic. i'm glad you guys got to take a break and do some outdoorsy things.

hey, i dont suppose your surfing instructor yelled at you "don't be nervous, don't be nervous!!" like the guy in maui?

Trish said...

No, Nyoman was great. He was much more of a laid-back surfer dude. I don't know what the deal was with that guy in Maui - too many double cappucinos maybe?

Anonymous said...

I agree with Mark K. You are so cool!

Anonymous said...

OOPs!
I meant Mary K. and i meant to sign jdn'/mp
oh something like that