Transcending Borders With Seeds in Our Hands

Today I went surfing and had a blast! The sun finally came out just before I headed out of my hostel to meet the surfing bus (it had rained koalas and wallabies all night and into morning). A van pulled up to the entrance with a driver that had dried out long blonde hair. He was on the cell phone but motioned with that surfer signal (thumb and pinky out) to get into the back. He got off the phone and said “Hey MATE! Howeryagoin’?!,” which, by now, I’ve figured means “how are you?”. He introduced his dog, Spot, who accompanies him on every surf lesson. We pulled back out into the drive and flew around and picked up 6 more people. The driver told us we had better start talking and being louder or else he would force us to play a ridiculous game that involved dancing. Prompted by the example moves he did, we all started talking and I found out that two girls were from Brazil, one guy was from Australia, one from England, and a couple from the Netherlands. We arrived at Lennox Point which is known for its sick waves.

We unloaded from the bus and I immediately started slathering on the sunscreen, not wanting to join the thousands and thousands of Australians who have skin cancer–they have highest rate in the world! We got into our wetsuits after lots of wincing and squirming. If you ever want to know how a sausage must feel, try one out. We went down to the beach and I could see that the water was quite rough…and I’m not an expert. The stretching routine started and then we did a jog, then held hands and skipped and then stretched some more. We learned about rips and currents and how to handle the board and how not to drown and how to fall. Matt (the teacher and driver, conveniently) held up a jellyfish and I assumed it was a fake one that he uses everytime but no–he was like “you build immunity to them after being around them for years and years, but if you guys get stung, it will just kill for about 20 minutes until I can get some hot water on it.” They were called blue bottle jellyfish because, surprise of all surprises, they look like little blue bottles when floating on the water. Matt taught us the five steps to getting up on the surf board. PADDLE, PADDLE, PADDLE, hands in, push up, rear foot up, twist and stand with front arm out. It was pretty easy, despite the long description, and we all got the hang of it after tens of times.

We headed out into the water and Matt came around to us one by one and helped us get turned around. If the wave wasn’t right, he would yell “take a breath” and then on the next one he’d say “READYYYYYYY…PADDLE PADDLE PADDLE. UP!”. And on the first one, I got up. I was up for a few seconds and then fell backwards, the safest way to fall. My butt hit the bottom and I got back out into the waves and rode quite a few. Everything was going well but then the waves started getting more frequent and tall. I got pulled under twice and I don’t think I have ever swallowed so much ocean water. My eyes stung a little and I felt like I had just downed a salt shaker. We headed in because it was so rough and we ate oranges on the beach. We showered off our wetsuits and then unpeeled them from our clamy bodies. The photographer, who captured all the highs and lows of our surfing training, showed us a slideshow and then told us the CD of pictures would be $25 dollars. I said “no thanks” although some of my pictures were priceless!

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