Riding the line

Today I rode down the line for the first time ever. Not once, not twice, but three times! What a rush.

It was an early morning - we were in the water by 6:15. High tide, so the waves were softer and not as steep as the past couple of days, but with the typical morning offshore wind that helps prop them up and curl nicely. Perfect beginner conditions.

Successfully riding down the line is a big milestone for any beginning surfer, and it's been the one goal I've had fixed firmly in mind from the very start of this trip. When you start learning to catch waves, you pretty much just ride the board straight down the face of the wave like a toboggan down a hill; when you get to the bottom the wave breaks behind you and the whitewater catches up and pushes you in to the beach like a snowplow. In contrast, to ride down the line you have to turn the board hard to one side in the brief moment just after you catch the wave so that you are aimed across the face instead of down it. Your beginner's intuition tells you that the wave is just going to flip your board over sideways and throw you into the churning water - and to be fair, if you don't execute it correctly it very well might - but by leaning hard and really digging the side of the board (aka the rail) into the face of the wave, you can conjure up hydrodynamic magic that will send you flying across the face of the wave like a rocket. Pure awesomeness ensues.

Laura, the Surf Simply photographer, was out taking pictures of us this morning, so I'm hoping to have some documentation of this achievement in the next few days. Fingers crossed she got some shots of my epic achievement.