Eight months later
It's ironic, but after quitting Shorehaven Boardriders you find yourself surfing more and more. Mostly on Back Beach, early before the sun has risen, or late when the sun has nearly gone. Practising, getting better at surfing by yourself is much more rewarding than Manu's techniques, and it's freeing.
One morning, your alarm jolts you awake at 4:30, and you slowly climb out of bed with a yawn. It takes two minutes or so for you to get changed and pull on your wetsuit, which is a slight struggle with your aching limbs from last night's surf. After grabbing your board from the shed, you attach it carefully to your bike and swing one leg over whilst using the other to push yourself off and down the coast path.
It's a warm morning despite it being winter, although Australia is usually still hot during the winter season: one of the reasons you love living here. For an August day at 4:30 in the morning, there's more people around than you would think - Shorehaven seems to be full of people who like getting up and going out for some sort of fitness venture early in the morning.
When you finally reach the beach, you lean your bike against the fence and remove the straps securing your board. After five minutes stretching you begin to make the descent down the million steps it takes to reach the beach. When you get halfway, you stop at a break in the stairway, a platform used to look out to sea. There's a nice offshore breeze this morning, and the waves are coming in frequent sets, but your eyes are suddenly drawn to a figure sat on their board out back. You strain your eyes to see, but their features are too blurred to make out their identity.
You watch for ten minutes or so, and are hopeful when the figure manages to catch a wave. But as soon as they pop up, you have your answer. The smooth turns and perfect technique, mixed with the height and stature of the boy can only be credited to one Ari Gibson.
He manages to make it to shore with his wave, and you expect him to paddle back out for another as a nice set rolls in. Instead, he picks up his board and carries it under his arm up the beach. You make a plan to hide until he's left the beach, but about two metres away from the sea, he suddenly stops, smiles and puts his board down, and you hear footsteps coming from down below you.
What you see nearly makes you break your ankle running back to the top of the Stairway.
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A/N: Soooo, I finally finished writing season 1 a DAY before Season 2 comes out no less. Thank you for all your lovely comments on this season, I love this book and the show itself so much and can't wait to write Season 2.
Also, I've decided I'm going to try and watch one episode a day of the new series (not sure how that'll go, but we'll see), and there's going to be eight episodes, so the first update of this book for Season 2 will be on Monday 25th of September. Hope this is okay, and I look forward to writing it!