After my morning workout [yes, I've kept up so far, although today I needed to change the routine or else face the wrath of a pilates group], I grabbed my kit to see what the beach was all about.
Oh BOY!
Sand and surf - sure, there are rocks to play on over there, but yehaa into the waves, and if they yehaa back, the sand is pretty forgiving. So I went stomping out into the waves to see if I could figure out how body surfing might work.
Mostly, it works by pumping lots of salt water into my nose.
The waves themselves are of varying character, and it isn't immediately obvious to me in the surf how many harmonics are in play - so the good wave sets seem to be pretty random. I was a bit worried about slamming into someone, although people were pretty sparse and once the wave caught me there wasn't much I could do about it anyway.
My favorite set was three excellent waves in succession. The first I rode in. The second, I decided that I had missed, right up to the point that it picked me up to take along anyway. When I got myself up from that, the third dropped directly on top of me.
(The other lesson was that water depth is very difficult to judge - you've got a nice wave to ride because of water pulled in from shore, which makes your landing area shallower than it was when you waded through it).
I also took some time to drive up the road for provisions - a little bit of fresh fruit, and lots of sandwich fillings. While wandering through that mall, I came across a Koi pond - yet another lost memory of my childhood visit to the islands.
Surf may be interesting tomorrow - high surf alerts in effect until Tuesday. On the other hand, I want to do volcanoes too (not close by), so I may give the surf a day (and my skin a second break from the sun - I'm due to molt shortly in any case).
January 17, 2010 1:34 AM
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