Surf's Up

⌠Chapter 6⌡

Picture of Peter 

Oh, and important author's note at the end, please don't skip over the bolded part

Chapter 6

I had been practicing surfing techniques and strengthening my muscles for the past few days and I was ready for some real surfing. I knew I wouldn't be able to jump right in and be pro, but with practice and time, I might actually be an alright surfer. She told me I needed to be well rested, so I slept my full 8 hours as best I could.

 I was so excited! 

 When I got the beach she was already there. She had two surfboards stuck in the sand next to her; one was bigger than the other. I was assuming the bigger one was for me. 

 "Today you are going to catch your first wave!" she told me.

"Sounds pretty good to me!" I smiled back at her.

"We'll warm up first, don't want to get any pulled muscles," she winced and so did I. Pulled muscle were painful. 

We jogged around a bit and did a few other warm up exercises before we headed back to the two boards stuck in the sand. She told me some rules I should follow in the ocean and some surfing etiquette. She asked me if I was ready, and I nodded. 

"Sweet, lets head out!"

We each grabbed a surfboard and I followed her lead towards a spot in the water not too far from shore. There were small little waves crashing against my legs. It felt really cool. 

"First I'm going to teach you how to turtle roll. You can't really duck dive with a long board, and you'll need to learn how to get under waves to get to the line up. Turtle rolls are pretty easy. You just basically hold onto your surfboard, roll upside down and wait for the wave to pass overr you, and flip back over and paddle away." 

I nodded and she laid down on her board. She paddled out a bit and showed me the technique. I followed suit close behind. I successfully rolled over. The only downside was I opened my mouth and sea water went in. Eww.

I rolled back over and spit it out and scrunched up my nose in distaste. We practiced a couple more times on super small waves and then she moved on. 

"Let's practice with a wave," she said. She waited a few moments before pointing out a wave that was going to form. "See that?" I nodded. "Wait until the timing is right and we'll turtle roll together." 

I paddled out and quickened my pace when I saw the wave was going to crest. I quickly turtle rolled and i felt the water wash over me. I flipped back over and kept paddling. I looked back to Natalie and saw she had her mouth open and eyes wide in surprise.

"That was perfect! How did you do that!? It took me forever to learn how to turtle roll and you learned it after ten minutes of practice!"

I just shrugged, baffled, it didn't seem that hard. "I'm sure I'll find other things hard."

"Have you surfed before?" she asked me. I shook my head, no. She got a big smile on her face. "I bet you're going to be a natural. I have a surfing prodigy on my hands, here." I just shook my head and stuck my tongue out at her. 

"Okay, next lesson, since you aced that," she chuckled. "I'll teach you how to catch a wave about the size of the one you just rolled over." 

 And so on the surfing lesson went. I had trouble in the beginning. It was mostly me just trying to stand up on my board. I couldn't have fallen any less than a hundred times - no exaggeration. I was so not a natural.