Surfing Surfari

Hi, this is Ben. During our time in NZ, we’ve been trying as many new things as possible, and it’s been lots of fun. Yesterday though, I tried something I never have before: surfing! I signed up through the school for 6 classes with Surfing Surfari, for total of NZ$90, and the next thing I knew I was standing on the beach, shivering from the cold and rain.
I get home from school on the bus, and it’s raining. Not hard, but raining. I walk to the car 100m up the road, and we drive up to the house so I can get changed. After a fifteen minute drive to the beach, we find the surfing place, and I head on over. One of the coaches sized me up with a wetsuit and white shirt to show that I was part of the surfing class. About 10 other people and I stood there, shivering from the cold and rain, waiting for more people to show up. We start the safety talk with about 15 people, all different ability levels. They tell us about how to come up from underwater with our hands over our heads, so that we don’t get brained by the board, and other stuff like that.

Next, we head out to the beach and take a short run to get warmed up, and do a couple of stretches. They bring out a board and tell us about all of the different parts and explain some basic rules. Then we are told to go out and catch two waves not trying to stand up. That goes great and we are called in to be taught to stand up. We practice on the beach first, and then they pretty much let us go. Catching the wave is the easy part, standing up is a lot harder. You have to jump up fast, and land exactly on the middle of the board, or it will tip, and you’ll fall off. You also can’t be too far forward, or the nose goes under, and you pretty much do a flip. I didn’t stand up successfully this time, but I’m hoping to get a lot better by the end of the lessons, and even better before I leave New Zealand.