28 before 28: Surfing Lessons

This morning, I woke up to rain. It has been raining here, complete with thunder and lightening, for the past week. The only difference today was that I cared. For the past three weeks I have been looking forward to this Saturday, because I was scheduled to take surfing lessons. Thankfully, the weather cleared, and at 8:30 my cousin Karl picked me up and we headed down to White Plains Beach and the Refresh Ministries surf clinic.

This should all be prefaced by saying that by nature, I'm pretty klutzy. Thus when they were teaching us how to get up on the board, I looked kinda pensive.

But after a couple of times through the routine of knees, foot pivot on land
They let me loose in the ocean. Well truthfully, not so much on the "loose in the ocean." I had a fabulous teacher named Sherry who was with me the whole time, helping me choose waves, giving me pointers, having me practice when the water was flat. And thanks to her help and encouragement I caught a couple of waves! ( I also fell into the water a ton, and managed to get a gnarly coral cut on the bottom of my foot)
As you can see in the above picture, my technique still needs a little work. I'm not centered and my feet are way too close together. But even with those flaws, I caught a couple of waves! And you better believe that I'll be back at Refresh Ministries surf clinic next month.

Although next month, I'll be in a long sleeved rash guard, a one piece swim suit and board shorts to prevent a rash from the beginner board. You can see parts of the rash from today in the pic below on my knees. I'm enjoying a SPAM musubi post surfing... a tasty Hawaiian comfort meal.