Catching a wave - or at least trying to
Learning to surf in New England is not for the faint of heart
There are a lot of things in life that look easy from the sidelines but turn out to be embarrassingly difficult when you're the one in the spotlight. Singing karaoke, making really good chocolate chip cookies, and carving a turkey are all in that category. And, I learned recently, so is surfing.
Growing up, I loved the beach. On annual family vacations to Virginia Beach and Myrtle Beach, I would grab my boogie board and be the first one in the water and the last one out. The East Coast is not known for its big waves, but I couldn't have been happier waiting a half-hour for a decent wave and then riding the sloppy little breakers to shore. I remember stealing jealous looks at the surfers' flashy boards and daydreaming about saving up enough money to buy my own.
As often happens, though, life intervened. But after visiting South Shore beaches with my kids and seeing hardy souls in full wetsuits braving the frigid waters, I figured now was the time to give it a shot.
You'd never really know it if you didn't know where and when to look, but New England is home to a fairly large and insanely dedicated community of surfers, stretching from Rhode Island through Cape Cod and the North Shore all the way up to Maine. The only problem is that the surfing season in New England is from about August through April - meaning the water temperatures vary between tolerable and life-threatening - and no one in his right mind would voluntarily take a total newbie out into the frigid water. Lucky for me, John McInerney and Ronnie Lees are completely nuts.
"Surfing in the winter up here is like getting ready for a walk in outer space," Lees told me. A deputy sheriff in Boston and co-owner of Northeastsurfing .com, Lees has been surfing the New England waves for years with McInerney, his friend and business partner, who runs a medical imaging company. With water temperatures hovering in the high 30s, I'd need a full 6-millimeter-thick wetsuit, gloves, booties, and a hood. All we needed were some waves. Unfortunately, the general rule is: the worse the weather, the better the waves.
The first order of business was the wetsuit. McInerney had lent me a seamless suit, which meant no zipper up the back. Putting it on involved a combination of contortions, swearing and sweating, but once I was in I could hardly believe how warm it was. With the gloves, hood, and booties on, I was actually sweating. Lees dropped an 8-foot longboard on the sand and gave me the basic lessons I'd need before hitting the water. McInerney had drawn the short straw and would be the one going out in the waves with me.
"The key thing you have to remember is that 80 percent of the injuries from surfing happen from your own board hitting you in the head," Lees said. "So when you fall, roll sideways off the board and always cover your head with your arms. Otherwise you end up with nice big gashes."
As if on cue, McInerney ambled over and showed off a dent in the center of his forehead. "Fin caught me right in the head couple of years ago. I was bleeding like crazy," he said. "Drove myself to the hospital, though. Barely made it before I started getting dizzy. OK! You ready to get wet?"
The dirty little secret of surfing is that you spend 98 percent of your time and effort paddling. McInerney walked ahead as I paddled, periodically shouting "Dive!" as a wave came our way. We didn't need to go too far out to find waves, and once we located a decent spot, McInerney spun the board around so that I was pointing at the beach.
"When I tell you to, paddle like hell, and then as soon as you feel the wave catch the board, pop up," he said. Right, got it. We let a couple of waves go by and then McInerney told me to get ready, gave the board a little shove forward, and shouted, "Go!"
And so I went, paddling like a frantic, wounded duck, remembering Lees's instructions to swoop my hands underneath the board and push the water backward instead of using a normal swimming stroke.
After what felt like five minutes - but was really more like 10 seconds - of desperate paddling, I felt the small wave surge beneath me and begin to carry the board forward. Promptly forgetting all the pointers Lees and McInerney had told me about how to stand up, I pushed down hard on the front of the board while trying to scramble to my feet and dunked the nose of the board into the front of the wave. The laws of physics being what they are, I then flipped head over heels, going face-first into the water. I thrashed my way back to the surface and was amazed to find that I had made it nearly all the way to the shore. I walked back out to where McInerney was waiting before hopping onto the board. He reminded me that getting my feet underneath my shoulders was the key to keeping my balance.
"If you lean too far forward or backward, you're going in the water," he said.
After about 10 more minutes of paddling, scrambling to my knees, and then tumbling gracelessly into the white water, McInerney suggested we try one more wave and then take a break. At this point, my arms felt like David Ortiz had been hammering them with a bat for an hour, but then a nice, clean wave appeared and I caught it just as it began to crest. Fighting the adrenaline surge, I got to my knees and then up on one foot as calmly as possible, imagining the sweet, fluid ride taking me all the way to the beach. As I daydreamed, I somehow forgot to stand up the rest of the way and was completely off balance when the wave broke right on top of me. As I fell, I instinctively threw my arms up to cover my head, but I was too late.
The tail of the board slammed down on the back of my head. Luckily it was the top of the board and not the fins that got me, but my head was still ringing. Coming up beside me, McInerney corralled the board as we walked back to the beach. We stood with Lees on the beach for a few minutes, the wind whipping the sand around us as I caught my breath. The waves had pummeled me, my lungs burned from swallowing what felt like a gallon of seawater, and I couldn't feel my face, thanks to the Arctic water temperature. But I was having an absolute blast.
"Ah, looks like you've caught the bug," McInerney said, looking at me. "You'll be a regular out here in no time."
I didn't really have the energy to answer so I just nodded, and when McInerney asked if I was ready for another try I tucked the board under my arm and headed right back into the water - numb, battered, and addicted.
