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I AM A PRO SURFER!!!!
The next day we headed down to the nearby town of Mancora for our first ever surf lessons. Mancora was a small but cool little beach town, unsurprisingly packed with surfers from all over the world. The waves were pretty big here but we were told it was perfect for beginners. Mancora has the biggest left break in the world, so it was a pretty good place to learn to surf! We hailed what we thoguht was cab to get there, but in fact it was just someone driving his car. Kath and i had to share the front seat and deliver some lettuces to his wife before we actually set off for the town!!! As we went through a police check point the policemen waved to the 3 people in the front, and 5 in the back seats (crazy people). The sand was absolutely scorching so we sat down for a drink on the beach and then RAN across the beach for our lesson.
The lesson itself didn't really teach us much as the instructors spoke very little English, but it was absolutely brilliant... definitely one of my best experiences on the trip. The instructors did 99% of the work for us, making it seem like we were natural born surfers who took to it like a duck to water (so to speak). I lay, relaxing on my board, speaking broken Spanish to my teacher as the poor guy swam us out against the waves (with me occasionally getting wiped out). Once out in the sea, we waited in the baking sun for the right wave, then my teacher and I would start to paddle and as we caught the wave, I'd get up and surf right back to the beach. The first wave i caught i stood up and managed to get all he way to the sand. After being told off my the instructor that i could break the board by beaching myself in the sand, i then learnt to fall off just before i got to the shallower water, which just made me look stupid like i was falilng off because i was rubbish. and i am NOT rubbish hehe. I loved surfing itw as great fun and i was so exilerated afterwards. It was really rewarding and i felt like i was flying when i was on top of this powerful wave coming into the beach.
Got a bus back to the beach where we were camping, where theticket collector was telling me taht he was in love with me due to the colour of my eyes and how beautiful they were. highly amusing. It was my teams turn to cook dinner and we had beautiful garlic prawns, BBQ chicken, stuffed fish and i made some delicious stuffed peppers for the veggies. First time we have had fish and it was SUCH A LUXURY. Lots of people are picky and dont like fish so that one meal where the fish eaters (led by me) overpowered the non-fish eaters was a glorious victory.
The next day i got up early and took a bus to the beach to get to the beach. i rented a board and decided to tackle the waves myself. This was not the best of ideas and i had no idea 1. how tiring it was to paddle yourself out there 2. how to catch the waves and 3. how to dodge getting wiped out whilest trying to get out to the surf and 4. how to stand up without someone holding the board for you. i caught 2 waves but i got seriously badly wiped out at one point. i caught the largest wave i had seen and ended up getting right on top of it, then falling vertically down into it. For so many seconds i was just getting dragged, pulled and tugged under the water. my foot was attached to the board and i was terrified of getting hit by it. I was half getting pulled by the board and half by the current. Sand was everywhere and i coudnt see what was the top of the sea and what was the bottom, so i was just kicking furiously towards nothing. I was gasping for air by the time i got to the surface and then decided to call it a day because that experience was scary as hell. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed to discover I wasn't such a natural after all!!
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