No-one has really asked what the heading of this blog means!? Well, I'll tell you anyway... It means the "skull surfer". This is because Juanita has these beautiful skulls painted around her boarder, and a cheeky one on the back that my friend sprayed on. Now she also has a skull on each fen! So Wendy and Alvaro started calling me Anna Calaveras and it sort of stuck. I like having a "stage name" :-) The waves yesterday where tough to say the least! Choppy, fast and inconsistent. Everything you don't want when you are trying to paddle through the break. Titi, who is Wendy's 12 year old son and an accomplished surfer, took one look at it and decided to stay on the beach. I was very tempted to do the same but Alvaro encouraged me to have a go. I am so lucky to have him as my trainer. He pushes me to challenge myself and he has faith in my abilities when I sometimes waver.
The trick to get out is to never stop, and to never get off your board. Now that might sound easy enough in theory, but when a fast moving, breaking wave is heading your way your first instinct is to stop and jump off your board to dive under, not to paddle straight at it! The first 50 ft are always the hardest, but once you get further out there are less waves breaking (although the ones that do are bigger) and you can get lucky and get a clear passage in between sets.
Something that use to terrify me but I have lately come to enjoy is when a "freak wave" comes my way. To catch a wave, you sit at the point just before most waves are breaking, but because no one wave is the same, every now and again a freak one will start building that is bigger than the rest and therefore will break further out (and over you if you don't get moving). That is when pure fear becomes your friend as you throw yourself down on the board and paddle for life to try and get over it before it breaks. In these cases you really need to know if you are about to win or loose the fight... There is a moment when the wave is just breaking and you are half way up it but you realise you are not going to make it over, when you can jump off your board and literally dive right through the wave. You can feel the power of the break above and behind you but where you are it is calm and quiet. So awesome!
Today the rain is hammerig down and surfing is not on the cards, but a new day beckons tomorrow and hopefully me, Bob and Juanita will go to the beach again, just like on the photo!
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