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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

20 Years

Today marks 20 years since I started surfing.  My dad had bought a house and the sellers from whom he purchased were leaving for New Jersey.  They left behind a blue board that was about 6'8".  I eventually bought a spring suit at Costco and decided to paddle out at Moonlight beach.

On my very first wave, I stood up on greenwater and did an exaggerated bottom turn and then fell.  I came up and a little kid said, "You're good!".  I replied saying that was my first wave ever.  The lifeguards then told me to skedaddle as I was in the middle of the blackball.  I had no idea what that meant, but I got out of the water.  I was then told I had to walk past the flags and paddled back out.

I remember I got one wave on which I gingerly went up, then down over and over again.  I was hooked from that point on.

The very next day, I had an early shift at Burger King so I got to Moonlight really early. I was paddling for a wave and something went wrong and I pulled on my leash.  My finger somehow found its way into the leash string loop and it got YANKED as the wave broke and hit the board.  I was getting really frustrated dropping into my first non-reform waves and I couldn't confidently do it for about eight sessions or so in steeper waves.

My first surf buddy was my friend from Video class, Jon Walton.  He lived on Coast in Del Mar at the time.  I ended up selling him my first board for $10 (WHOOPS) after I had upgraded.