Surfs Up! My First Attempt at Surfing

Surfing is something that I have always wanted to try. When I was younger I loved the movie Blue Crush and always pictured myself living the beach bum life and going surfing every morning. Well in Eleuthera, Bahamas I finally got the chance to live out my teenage fantasy. I knew surfing would be difficult and I probably wouldn't be turning pro anytime soon, but I thought maybe since I've been snowboarding a bunch of times before that it would help. Boy was I wrong!

The day started off great as we got to Surfer's Beach on the Atlantic side of Eleuthera. There were a decent amount of waves, but they weren't too huge as to scare off a beginner like me. First, we each got a board and obviously took the obligatory "standing with your surfboard" pictures. This should have been my first clue when my I could barely hold the board with my short little arms. So we headed out there, paddling my little heart out. Once we finally made it past the break and my arms sufficiently recovered we were going to learn to push ourselves up to sitting and turn around when a wave comes. Well, I never got past the sitting part. The pulling myself up to sitting part was pretty easy it was the staying on the board while sitting part I had troubles with. Every time I pulled myself up I probably had a good 30 seconds of wobbling back in forth before I finally tipped over one side or the other. It was probably a hilarious sight to see and I sat there trying to talk myself out of falling over, "No no no no no."  I finally switched to a different (nicer) board and was able to manage and sit on the board for a good 5 minutes or so at a time before I would fall off. Deciding to see that as a success I called it a day.

Even though my day isn't what you would call a conventional successful day of surfing I had a great time and I definitely want to give it another try and as my wise teacher told me, "Even if you don't have a successful day surfing, sitting on a board, relaxing in the middle of a beautiful blue ocean ain't bad." 

Have you ever gone surfing before, were you better at it than I was?