Surfing on water is *completely* different than surfing on land

Let's go surfin' now, everybody's learning how,
come on a safari with meeeeee...

It's true. I don't want to ruin anyone's aspirations of becoming an Olympic surfing champion, but no matter how good you are at land-surfing to the "Hawaii Five-0" theme song (which I will admit to doing every time the show comes on) once you add a board and water, it becomes very freakin' difficult.

Joel and I recently traveled to the coast. It was our first trip away from Antigua since... Well pre-car theft, I guess. So it's been around a year and a half. We decided we would get surf lessons, since the place we were staying prided itself on being an excellent place to surf. When in Rome, right? If they offered para-sailing, SCUBA diving or finger-painting, heck, I would've happily tried those things, too. But no, their specialty was surfing. It was time to hang eleven. (I have an extra toe.)

Jennifer, the Land-Surfing Champion

In typical Guatemalan fashion, our surf instructors were over an hour late (punctuality is not a strong trait here) so Joel and I spent the time doing what we do best -- land surfing. You stand on the board and balance yourself and WAH-LA! You're surfing.

The hotel loaned us rash guards (those nifty shirts surfers wear to keep from getting scraped by the surf boards) and we decided we looked like a couple of bad-asses who knew how to surf. We were kidding ourselves.

It's hard to carry a wide board when you
have short T-Rex arms.

And a word about rash guards. They are made of thin fabric and are tight for a reason. You don't want a bulky t-shirt flapping around and weighing you down. However, even the tightest rash guard will sometimes scrunch up and without knowing it, your tummy area is rubbing against the board. This happened to me and I nearly rubbed my entire belly button off. After a day of surfing, whenever I saw the guys at the hotel going out to surf without a rash guard all I could think was, "How do they still have nipples?" I mean, wow. The pain! My knees also got scraped, but wearing knee pads while surfing would've made me look like an uber-dork. If you want to know what it feels like, rub sandpaper all over your body. Then jump into a kiddie pool full of salt water. Enjoy the pain. While you're at it, drink some of the water and/or ingest it through your nose. And try to look cool doing it.

Let the fun begin!

Ok, so the lesson. The instructor told me the wider the board, the better your chances of standing up. I requested something large -- like a garage door -- but they handed me a bright blue beginner's board. And it was so wide, it was hard for me to carry with my stupidly short T-Rex arms. The actual lesson was...hmm. Well, let me just say that for me, it was completely unnecessary. Not only because my instructor, Carlos, didn't speak English, but also because I just sort of figured it out on my own. We didn't spend a lot of time on the beach practicing the 1-2-3-step move to get up on the board. I was eager to get in the water and do it. I'd have to say the best thing about having an instructor was that he helped me paddle my way out to the waves and kept me from getting a concussion when the board smacked into a wave.

Uhhh, sorry about the view, Carlos.

Carlos was a tiny waif of a guy. He took me out to waist-deep water and patted the board (my signal to hop on up there). Ok, no problem. He pushed me out to deeper water and that's when I realized poor Carlos had a terrific view of my not-so-terrific Whitey-McWhite ass. (If I am ever lost at sea or get stranded in a forest, do not send search teams during the day. Wait for nighttime. Send a plane. I will remove my clothes and the glow from my pasty white butt cheeks will act as a beacon, glowing in the night.)

Ahh, but I digress... 

Anyway, so there I was, wading out to sea with my butt in Carlos' face. Whenever a large wave would come our way, Carlos would weigh down the end of the board, causing me and the board to pop up over the wave. It was a lot of fun, but in hindsight, it's like voluntarily getting whiplash from snapping your neck against your spine. (But mostly it was fun.) Oh, and the force of the board against my chest made me wonder if I was going to break a boob. (Do boobs break? I don't really know. Mine seem to have survived.)

Without warning, Carlos spun me around to face the shore. It was like the first time I was handed the car keys in my Driver's Ed class. I was like, "Really? You think I'm ready for this? What if I kill someone?" But it was now or never.

The wave came. I scooched my toes to the end of the board and gripped the sides. Carlos gave the board a shove...

...and I was off!

Ten second later...

...I was face-first in the water!

I consumed a lot of salt water. Salt water is like a never-ending margarita, but not as much fun because there's no tequila or a fancy bendy straw included in the deal.

Yeah, that's me out there. It looks like I'm saying, "Cheers!" In reality, 
it was probably more like, "Oh, craaap! I'm about to wipe out again!"

Carlos and I did this about three times before I finally got the hang of that oh-so-important word: BALANCE. And another word that was deeply embedded in my brain: DETERMINATION. I was determined, come hell or high salty water, to stand up on that damn board. I had the eye of the tiger, the thrill of the fight. Yada-yada-yada. It got to the point where Carlos would turn me to face the shore and I'd growl, "Ok, wave... It's just you and me... And the board... And the sand..."

I don't have any photographic evidence, but there are witnesses and I'm sure they'd swear that I did stand up on the board and travel all the way to the shore. In fact, I did it many times. Once you get the feel for it, it's not too too too hard. A lot of it depends on the wave -- how long it lasts and if you catch it at just the right moment. Carlos walked me back to the shore to re-explain how to stand up, but gave up after he realized that no matter how many times he went over it, I was still going to do it my own way. (Smart man, that Carlos.)

Was I good at it? Oh, heck no. I'd compare my stance as more of a chunky cinder block on a board than anything sleek and graceful. If you could picture The Incredible Hulk on a surf board (minus the green skin) that would be me. I did it. I was bad at it, but I did it. I was so sore the next day. Even my armpits hurt. I realized this as I was trying to squish a lime down the throat of my beer bottle. Aching armpits? How is that possible? Ouch.

Joel with his very own bright blue beginner's board. 

Did I mention the stingrays and jellyfish? Yeah, the water was teeming with them. The owner of the hotel suggested we do the "Stingray Shuffle" when walking in the water. He said people at the hotel who have been stung by stingrays say "the pain makes you feel like you are dying." Sounds like fun! So shuffle I did. I don't know how to avoid a jellyfish...other than not go in the water with peanut butter. (Get it? Peanut butter and jellyfish?) HA!? (Did I mention I took in a lot of salt water?)  

Sunscreen is very important, especially for a self-proclaimed glow-in-the-dark person like myself. I was wearing SPF 50 but somehow a critical part of my body got missed or the sunscreen rubbed off. What part? My butt. Yep, I burned my cheeks and the area below my waist. It hurt to sleep at night. The two-hour ride in the un-air conditioned shuttle back to Antigua was loads of sweaty, butt-bouncing fun. I've been putting gobs of lotion on my skin ("it puts the lotion on its skin..." Sorry, that will only make sense if you've seen "Silence of the Lambs") and it's getting better. But now it's starting to itch. And peel. Ouch ouch ouch.

This little piggy went surfing... it's hard to tell, 
but my "ring finger" toe is swollen. 

Oh yeah, and I broke my toe while surfing. I made it all the way to the shore and I was dismounting and let's just say I didn't stick the landing. I landed funny and my foot curled under me... It was one of those things you do and think, "Man, that is really gonna hurt..." but I kept surfing. You can't do anything for a broken toe, so why gripe? The worst part was trying to put on my flip-flops afterwards. One of my toes refused to wiggle. Try putting on a flip-flop without wiggling your toes and see how hard it is.

Joel's land-surfing stance

Joel did better with the surfing because he had a lesson in Costa Rica on our honeymoon. He got up on the board and surfed, but I also saw him eat it a few times. He didn't have the luxury of guy like Carlos helping to push him out to the waves, so I'm sure he got pretty tired pretty fast. I think he was secretly amazed that I did as well as I did. Wah-wah-waaaaaaaah!

Other than surfing, we did a lot of swimming and walking on the beach. Even though it was Easter Week and everyone had time off from work, the beach was almost deserted, which was so nice. We found a lot of cool shells, including The Holy Grail of seashells -- a whole sand dollar. Woo-woo! And we didn't just find one. We found five. FIVE! I could open my own store called "Jen's Shell Shack" or "Everything's a Sand Dollar."

One of the five sand dollars we found 

And not to sound too gruesome, but every time I walk on a beach early in the morning to see what shells washed up overnight, I have a secret fear of finding a human hand or a severed head or some other body part. Am I the only one? Or should I stop watching all of those CSI shows on tv? Geeze, I'm a sick puppy.

Below you will find a few more pics from our three-day getaway. That's it for now. Thanks for reading my blog. And until we meet again, stay thirsty, my friends.

-Jennifer

P.S. I was just kidding about the extra toe. It's actually an extra finger. So when someone says, "Gimme five!" I say, "I'll do even better -- I'll give you six!" Finding gloves is a real problem for me.

P.P.S. Ok, I was kidding about the finger, too. (I'm a compulsive liar.)

Our collection of shells. Check out the FIVE sand dollars!
The pink shells (on the bottom right) reminded me of ears.

That sand dollar was biiiig. 

I didn't realize until after I took this picture that sand had
gotten in my camera and the lens wasn't open all the way.
But it looks pretty cool, eh?

We spent a lot of time in the hammocks. It's a shame the
pina coladas weren't very good. I had hopes of sitting in a hammock,
killing off many coladas. The ones at the hotel were expensive,
small, and tasted relatively rum-free. Bummer.

Joel and I found a new hotel with a great restaurant just down
the beach from ours. We ate there several times.
Here's Joel chilling in their porch swing. 

Waiting for the surf instructors to arrive... 

Joel in our "loft" hotel room. We shared this big open room
with seven other people. I got to hear strangers fart in their sleep. 

This surf board belongs to someone who knows
what they're doing. (See how short and skinny it is?)
No garage door here!

The end. You are free to do something else now. Thanks again for visiting!