The Surfing Diary

My husband and I like to surf. I have a longboard that I named Bluey, but she mostly sits in our dank cellar. Rather, we are paddle-surfers. We stand upright on the water on boards longer and wider and thus more bouyant than traditional longboards and, using a paddle, navigate through all kinds of adventure--around islands or rocks or along a coastline. You can ride waves like a traditional longboarder, letting the sea carry you in the direction its going, or power headlong into the waves, letting the balance of your vertical body to the horizontal board slice through the high water for a very different, but equally amazing, ride.

Paddle-surfing is similar to longboarding in a few elemental ways. Most basic, you're moving with the rhythm of the water. A paddle-surfer who understands the wind and current can position herself to FLY. [I imagine downhill skiing feels something like this, though I am not a skiier--the cold and the snow being disqualifiers.] Also like longboarding, the power is in balancing, in the rhythm of feeling when to lean this way, when that.

On a deeper level, as I become a more experienced paddle-surfer, I am learning that all surfers also make a decision--consciously or unconsciously--about how to be in this relationship with the water. Will it be a continual battle of wills, I'm-stronger-and-smarter-than-you-think-I-am? Will it be one of reverence mixed with a little fear--what I imagine happens in most houses worship of Western religions? Thank you for allowing me share your bounty, I will proceed with respect and awe.

I'm discovering, in surfing as in my other intimate relationships, that I straddle the two. Usually with some discomfort.

Yesterday was a clear September day, utterly cloudless. Though it was windy at the house, the Sound was flat and blue. I'd brought both my husband's and my surf boards to the beach, though his joining me didn't look promising -- he'd slept past noon when the night before we'd vowed to be on the water by 11 and I'd left him in the kitchen, dozily preparing toaster waffles.

I rowed out into a perfect, clear high tide -- another glory of September is that most of the motor-boaters and godforsaken jetskiiers are gone. With the changing season, the sun was in a noticeably different place on the horizon than it had been all summer, and the change in light was melancholy, glowing, delicious.

My favorite ride this summer has been out to and around an island a couple of miles from our beach. It is long, shaped something like Florida, covered with pine trees and rocks. I start by paddling toward the bottom tip--right around Key West. Make my way up the eastern shore, past Miami. At the northern tip of the island, two strong currents meet. Earlier in the summer, when a hurricane was entering the mid-Atlantic, I kept getting tossed from my board at this intersection, unable to make the connection between the hurricane that was still days away and why the currents were so strong, the water so high. I learn to make these connections gradually, in pieces.

The entire island is maybe two miles in circumference. Once past the northern tip and its challenging currents, a paddler can usually catch the strong south-bound current and coast the couple of miles back to shore, letting the wind and water do most of the work of taking you home.

It started out beautifully. As I entered the deep gulley at the foot of the island, I noticed with a little relief how quickly I was moving--this is another spot where I've had trouble; a deep hole where the bottom drops off sharply and two currents meet. On a calm day, you ride the choppiness. On a hard day, you can be stuck in suspended animation: Your hardest efforts at pulling yourself forward are counteracted by a stronger current, simultaneously pushing you back.

But yesterday I glided through, singing. Singing and surfing, for me, go hand-in-hand. I am not usually conscious of the singing until something makes me stop.

I had made it up the far side of the island. On the horizon just beyond the northern tip I could just make out the silhouettes of two fishing boats; past them, a regalia of sailboats. The closer of the fishing boats had several people in it. It sat low in the water--a small boat with an outboard motor, maybe a few kids out fishing, or a dad giving mom the morning off. The further boat was bigger, sleeker. A lone silhouette was barely detectable on board. I noticed both boats with a corner of my attention -- part of the scenery, they were further out at sea than I had any intention of going.

It snuck up me, as it usually does. I did not see this trouble coming. Looking back, it seemed like one minute was perfection -- pure blythe enjoyment. Then, quickly, it changed.

I was at the hook of the top curve of the island. Trying to cut left, leaning into what had become a strong wind, and turn my board toward the shore. I was facing the right direction, but I wasn't moving. I tried harder, measuring my progress against the rocks to my left. I was making no progress. I got down on my knees--easier on the body, though harder on the back--pushing my whole self into every stroke. My singing had become cursing. I was GODDAMNED going to get through this, this water was NOT stronger than me. Muscling, muscling, efforting through. This is how I move through much of life.

It did no good. I wasn't moving, and now I was exhausted. I looked behind me, at the path that had gotten me here. I hate admitting defeat, but I had to acknowledge that the only way forward seemed to be the way I had come. I had to turn around and go back the long way, if I wanted to get back at all.

I turned around. Started paddling. I could hear the fishing boat with the small group of people passing me, anchoring down in a further spot. I wondered if my distant thrashing was chasing their fish.

Several minutes into my retreat, I had what I have come to think of as my Blair Witch Project moment: I still wasn't going anywhere. I was lined up exactly with the same rock that had been my gauge earlier, showing me that I was standing still.

I had managed to turn my board around, but the tide was pulling me out. The current and the wind were strong. My arms, tingling from exertion, were no match.

I stood for awhile and paddled in place, but gently, trying to use little energy but anxious, now, not to lose more ground to the pull of the tide. Shore suddenly looked very far away.

The decision I finally came to seemed like the safest. I would head for the fishing boat with the lone figure. I knew the tide would carry me out anyway, and while he was further out than I wanted to be, I didn't seem to be able to change the course of that direction. I could head toward the other boat, but I didn't know if it could pull me -- it was already sitting low in the water, and towing me back over the current, closer to shore, seemed like the only answer.

I started towards him. I was on my knees, paddling. I felt uniquely idiotic. When I got close enough to make out his person, I read him as young-ish, local--the reddish-blonde hair under the baseball cap, the ruddy fisherman's complexion, the orange rubber waders he wore, held by suspenders over his shoulders.

I waved. He waved back. He was pulling up anchor. I started to wave more frantically. He paused, stopped, watched.

I made a dash for him. With the last of my energy, I rowed out to within fifteen feet of his boat. I saw that he was handsome underneath dark sunglasses, in a boyish way. His sunburned arms were muscular, strong.

When I was within hearing distance, I called out to him. I explained my predicament. I laughed at my own stupidity. He was shy, awkward, very Yankee, but seemed willing to help. I don't know how we're going to get your board on the boat, he said as we circled each other, doing this odd dance of rescue and introduction. We're not, I replied -- can I pass you my paddle, and can you toss me a tow line?

That's what we did. He took off slowly, me clinging to a seaweedy rope tied to a big white buoy.

I realized, maybe ten minutes into the ride, that 1) this was sort of fun, and 2) it was taking this large motor boat just as long to round the northern tip of the island as it had taken me to realize I wasn't moving. What had I been thinking?

The fisherman kept glancing back at me to make sure I was still holding on. I kept giving him the thumbs-up. He picked up a little speed. I sat on the board, legs now stretched in front of me, one hand gripping the edge of the board, one hand holding the seaweedy buoy line. I realized how far at sea we actually were, and felt the first real discomfort of actual fear. Water was splashing me in the face and I was cold, but it felt like the end was close.

I don't remember the exact moment when I realized this next part, but at some point of the journey I realized that the fisherman's left hand--the one not steering the boat--had disappeared into his waders. One hand steering the boat. The other hand...wait, I thought. Wait. What?

I watched, trying not to watch. I could see part of his left side and back. I kept watching the arm in the waders. I could see the muscles in his forearm flex slightly, then relax. Flex again.

We were out in open water. He had my paddle. I had very little strength left. He was towing me...where?

My adrenaline started pumping. I shifted on my board, got onto my knees. I felt the primal urge to make my presence bigger--as if I was trying to frighten off a barking dog. He glanced back towards me--did he have a rear-view mirror? I don't know that much about boats. Scanning the horizon, I registed that the water was still deep, and that I didn't have the strength to swim to shore, with or without my paddle, with or without my board. I breathed. His arm kept moving.

Then, suddenly, magically, I saw a dot on the horizon. My husband. My waffle-eating husband had come out to surf after all. I may have never been happier to see him.

Oddly, I also felt a pang of guilt. Here I was being towed somewhere by some handsome young fisherman. Going for a ride. I had chosen him, hadn't I? I could have aimed for the other boat, but I didn't. I aimed for the man alone.

As we got closer, I started waving frantically. I couldn't tell if he saw me. The fisherman, on the other hand, turned sharply as I started waving. He followed my gaze, saw my husband maybe a mile away on his board, almost seemed to point him out to me. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically. Yes, he's with me, I pantomimed.

Finally, at some point, I noticed my husband notice me. He had stopped almost still, as if trying to decide what to do. I waved harder. He started paddling in our direction.

It was over then. The moment changed. I waited until the sound of the motor passed on a breeze, and called out to the fisherman. His arm came out from inside his bright orange waders. He turned around. Thank you, I said--this is where I get off. Thank you. Will you pass me my paddle?

We did, exchanging paddle for buoy. I thanked him again and from the short distance I saw a rush of things pass over his face--embarassment, confusion, something else?? I'm not sure. He nodded and sped off, fast.

I lay belly-down on my board, propped on my elbows, and waited for my husband to reach me. When he arrived, I was too tired to explain. I passed him my paddle, tucked my head against the spray from his wake and grabbed hold of the back of his board.

He rowed us home.