Sunday, sunny, summer

Sunday, sunny, summer= bumper to bumper (or rather nose to tail) traffic in the water. There were probably 50 people out along our small stretch of surf beach. A year ago, that would have totally intimidated me, especially with waves over a foot high. But now I can go out and stay safe (though of course there is some dumb luck involved in that)and actually get my share of waves without it fazing me at all. Of course, now I know a lot of the people in the water, know who the good surfers are, and know which ones are going to hog all the waves and who will run over me as soon as look at me. As for the others, I watch and see who's just clogging up the lineup and who's actually getting waves and which way they go.

Today was a nice day with fairly decent waves in the AM. I was out for a long time and was having chats and getting surf tips. A couple of times W., who gets every wave he wants and he wants them all, actually gave me waves. I think C. might have spoken to him and asked him to help me. But even C., who was out today, offered up a couple words of advice.

Mostly, today I concentrated on doing what I've been told to do by my most recent instructor: angle the board as I'm taking off, and wait to stand up until I'm sure I'm well into the wave. I tried hard to do both, but neither one helped. In over two hours, I managed only once to get to my feet and stay up more than a split second.