Surfing

February 22nd

I came across Alba's Surf Club on a general Melbourne web forum. With about 80 members, typically 10 people go surfing Saturday and Sunday, every weekend. Open to all levels, there are a few instructors who offer lessons to the beginners. You can rent boards and wetsuits through the club, and carpool to the day's destination. And I was desperate to go surfing.

***

Sunday morning, bright and early, I pack everything up -- sunscreen, hat, towel, lunch, bathing suit -- and head to the meeting point. But when I get to where 523 should be, it's not there: 519 and then 527. The only thing in between is a little parking area.
Maybe this is where we're supposed to meet. (At this point, I don't have a phone and, for some reason, neglected to write down anyone in the club's contact info).
5 minutes before we're meant to leave and still no one else is there. Definitely at the wrong spot.
Maybe it's 532. So I start walking, quite disappointed that I may not be going surfing, after all.

A few blocks up, there are a bunch of people lashing boards to roof racks. Suddenly, I am horribly shy, and make a slow approach. Before I can say anything, one of the guys asks if I'm with the club. Yes, yes I am.
Introductions, final preparations, car arrangements, and we're off around 9am, only half an hour behind schedule (not bad, considering there are 24 people).

***

We're headed to Phillip Island, a 2-hour drive outside of the city. Maybe an hour in, we pass some roadkill. I give a somewhat dejected, "Oh..."

"What's up?" asks Tom, the driver and my soon-to-be surfing instructor.
"I was hoping the first kangaroo I saw would be alive..."
"Hmm, you’ll see more dead than alive, to be sure. Besides, I think that was only a wallaby."

***

There were four of us who had never surfed before. The conditions in the morning were pretty good for beginners, too. I stayed in the water until my legs were jelly and my arms didn’t have enough strength left to get me onto the board. (And I had my wetsuit on inside out for easily two hours before I could bring myself to stop long enough to change it).

The afternoon brought rougher surf and it took a while to get far enough out for a good crack at it. But I got my feet on the board and my hands off several times by the end of the day, which I’m told qualifies as standing up, despite being far from vertical.

***

One of the other beginners, a very tall Dutch girl, got whacked in the head – she would have been right behind me at the time, but I didn’t notice. One minute she was there; the next, gone. She gets to go to orientation at university tomorrow with a bunch of stitches, poor thing.

Everyone met up at a pub and waited for them to finish at the hospital, which amazingly only took a few hours on a sunny Sunday.

***

The group of guys play around like a bunch of bear cubs; it’s really quite funny. Alba tells me it’s something about being in the water together; you bond pretty quickly.

The sunset on the way home is brilliant: vibrant pink in a shimmering sky. Beautiful, but unsettling: the radiance due to the still-burning bush fires.