Your patience will be rewarded. Photo: John Cameron
“If you can learn to surf here, you can learn to surf anywhere.”
It’s the same words I heard when my surf guru Bob first took me to paddle out at sizable Ocean Beach, and it’s what I told my friends the first time they took a look over the dunes of the Great Highway.
When two of my best friends moved from Massachusetts to San Francisco, they asked me to teach them how to surf. Teaching people to surf in SF is not an easy task. The water is cold, the waves are jacked up, and the ocean is powerful. Once you’re a decent surfer, it’s paradise with a parking lot. But it’s a beginner’s battlefield.
After a few sessions in nearby Pacifica, I decided to take them to OB. It was 2-4 feet, but not exactly a warm welcome. The waves were punchy, and there were a few lines of whitewater between the shorebreak and the outside. Most people out there who could not duck dive got pummeled back to shore and gave up. Yes, it was a cheeky move taking them to OB so soon, but I’ve met many people who “want to learn to surf” and then bail.
Not my friends. To my surprise they ate up every second of the poundings, and wanted more.
Eventually they each broke through and caught a nice wave. A steep, chest high roller approached as I said, “Go, go, go!” One of my friends turned and paddled hard. Right when the wave started to jack, he scrambled to his feet and to my surprise, rode the wave bully stance — his body and feet facing forward, like he was hanging 10 in the middle of the board. He cruised for a good 20 yards.
What ensued has been an amazing journey.
There were sunny days in Santa Cruz, surfing the relaxed waves at Cowell’s and Pleasure Point. The gentle and cruisy faces gave them time to get comfortable on their boards and learn how to control their edges. There were foggy days in Half Moon Bay, where the shorebreak was so jacked that we ditched the board and laid in the beachbreak’s washing machine, rolling around like seals.
We even bought blanks off the internet and shaped our own surfboards together — a bonding experience.
Then everything changed when they moved to Newport Beach. I’d go down and visit them when I could, but for the most part they were out surfing on their own. I really didn’t know how they were progressing, or if they were at all.
But a sudden career shift from science writing to surf writing created an interesting opportunity. I had just started writing for a few surf outlets and realized that Orange County would be a much better place to find stories — in the heart of the surf industry. And being the amazing people that they are, my friends invited me to come down and live with them for a few weeks (which of course turned into a few months).
I was shocked when we went out for our first family surf (which is what we called it back then). When we got down to the Newport Pier, I could tell that things had changed. Rather than asking me what looked good, they chirped back and forth to each other, “That left looks a little closed out,” and “But the right looks like it’s holding up.” I took a backseat, and watched as they picked out the peak.
Once we paddled out, I was pleasantly surprised by their progress. One of my friends picked off a right, held her line in a casual stance, and rattled off a nice turn on the end section. They’d been frothing at it, and hard! And I knew that we had, and will always have, something special.
During that winter we surfed everywhere together, and for me, surfing had never created so much joie de vivre. It wasn’t always about scoring a perfect wave, it was about the fact that we could have more fun than anyone else in the water.
Everything’s better with friends, and the joy of teaching them to surf is one of patience paid off.
