, 3 min, 487 words
Tags: adventuring baja
This season I have the pleasure of working (and paddling, of course) in Loreto, Baja California Sur. I'm working for a lovely company, and as a bonus, I have a flexible schedule, so when the surfing is good, I can get out there!
There's a delightful surf spot around 30 minutes down the road, and it gets lovely wind waves with the predominant northerlies we get through here.
Before coming down here, I'd surfed about three times, all in tide races around the San Juans. So my first time at Juncalito also meant my first beach break. Luckily, Ginni was willing to show me the ropes. We spent around half an hour going over the basics of surfing, then I was off to play on my own.
I caught a few waves, enough to get some adrenaline going and get my confidence up. Then I bit off a wave too big for me. Before I knew it, I found myself upside down, underwater with the ocean churning every which way around me, unable to find the surface with my paddle...I gave up on the roll and wet exited.
Just a few waves later, I was paddling out through the waves. Apparently I wasn't paddling fast enough, because the next thing I knew I was surfing...backwards! I know many skilled kayakers can manage this fine, but I'm not there yet – I stayed above water for about a second before capsizing, getting what felt like three gallons of saltwater up my nose and wet exiting again.
I won't lie, I was a bit shaken by these swims – I'd gotten a little too sure of my roll, I guess.
I got a great tip from a friend, James, who said he'd had some sobering swims early on in his surfing career as well. He suggested I practice rolling by using it to get off a wave: surf a bit, then roll down-wave and pop up again after. In theory, if you time it right, you don't even need much force from your paddle – just stick it out into the wave and the wave practically pops you up on its own.
Well, I got up the nerve to try it, and from there, I had a hundred percent success rate. I hope that translates to better combat rolls in surf in the future!
Ginni paddled up to me about an hour later. Both of us had huge grins stuck on our faces, and she warned me conspiratorially that "surfing can be addictive, you know." I think she might be on to something, but I'm afraid I'm too busy surfing to investigate further.