Thanks to Club Ed

It was all meant to be. After three rescheduled lessons in as many weeks, after storm-induced 10-12 foot swells earlier in the week, Ed was right: Things settled down. Not only that. The temperature reached well into the 80s, and a dear friend turned out to be free to join me on a Thursday adventure in search of surf.

The first item on the agenda called for checking out Paradise Surf Shop, which receives the better part of a chapter in Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls. Four female friends keen to give a boost to the women’s surfing community opened the shop in 1997, making it “the only girl-focused Northern California venture in existence” (167). Santa Cruz, which Comer points out as having “more women in the water than any other place in the world (15-20 percent)” (169), welcomed the enterprise, which also sponsored surf contests and supported environmental activism. Comer observed in her book, published just this year, that the recession had hit the shop hard, forcing the owners to look for a buyer. Indeed, by the time I got down there yesterday, Paradise Surf Shop was gone for good. Asking around, I found out it closed its doors two months ago, another small business that couldn’t make it until things settled down.

But the missed opportunity didn’t stand a chance against the perfection of the day. We wended our way over to the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, a brick lighthouse no larger than a San Francisco bedroom, but had to pause with nearly every step to take in the 5-7 foot waves, the cresting surfers (easily 100) and the warmth of the sun, unhampered by much more than a light breeze. Summer in November? We took it. After a short lap through the Museum’s century of Santa Cruz surfing, we joined the Club Ed group lesson down at Cowell’s Beach.

After balancing the bright yellow, 10-foot foam boards on our heads for a walk across the sand, we lined them up, noses toward the surf, and practiced two techniques for standing up: the typical pop-up that relies on upper body strength and the quick positioning of your left foot forward (if you’re regular footed) and right foot back, into a low stance that stabilizes your center of gravity (goofy-footed surfers have their right foot forward). You can also sit up on a bended right knee, slide your left foot forward, and push off the board with your right foot. The second option is especially helpful if you’re running low on energy and need to give your arms a break.

Then it was time to finally paddle out and give this all a shot. The instructors, John and Emily, couldn’t have been more encouraging, in possession of a calm that quelled my own rising nerves merely by proximity. We glided over toward the small, pristine sets ideal for beginning surfers. We learned how to tip our board to ride over a breaking wave; how to sit back and turn by egg-beating our feet until we faced the waves. (You don’t want to get caught off guard by an incoming set.) Their teaching philosophy for catching a wave was as straightforward as it gets: “Paddle over here to me. Turn around. Now go. Paddle, paddle, paddle!” They held the tail of the board, lined us up, and gave a firm push. The extra velocity added to that generated by my own paddling just enough to feel the rush of the wave and to sense when it was time to pop upright.

The first time, I stood straight up, my feet parallel, as if I had been told to stand and wave hello to everyone on shore. No harm, no foul. I tried again. That second wave turned out to be one of my best rides all day, a long one right back within yards of shore. A hop off, a holler, unadulterated fun. I had to shout to my friend on the beach: “Did you see that?!” unaware of who might hear or who might care. It didn’t matter. All my preparation and patience was paying off in that exact moment and I couldn’t help but acknowledge so out loud. We cheered each other, too, with each ride, no matter how long. We clapped and bellowed with such genuine support for the efforts of virtual strangers. Each wave is a commitment, after all. Even with that extra nudge, you have to focus, decide you’re ready to go, and contribute to the direction of the board toward shore.

I paddled back out to our little group, all outfitted in bright blue shirts that announced our surf school much like those triangular placards crowned on driving school vehicles that warn: Stand back! Beginner on the road! The driving analogy is apt as the rules of the waves are similar to those of the road. The incoming surfer has the right of way; you don’t cut in front of multiple lanes of traffic; etc. Much is common sense, but you’re also learning to get up before you can advance to steering techniques. Cowell’s can be packed with surfers of all levels. If you do see a surfer coming unavoidably across your path, the etiquette calls for you to slide off your board and flip it over on top of you like a temporary, underwater shelter until the wave and its surfer pass.

After a few more rides, my smile was permanent, as was a healthy dose of adrenaline—we were still all those yards out and above an unseen ocean floor, its depth unmeasured. But these waves were soft, not the heavy, unforgiving terrain of Ocean Beach. The exertion was humbling to say the least; my arms started to wither, my triceps loudly announcing themselves (as they still are today). I caught my breath staring out at the lineups another quarter mile offshore and around the point that jets out into the Pacific, produces these consistent breaks, and helps make Cowell’s “one of the best places to surf in the world,” according to John (Surfer’s July 2009 issue also ranked Santa Cruz the top surf town in the U.S.).

You can learn a thing or two wading out, waiting for that next set, hypnotized by the motion of the water relative to the horizon. As it turned out, for instance, John used to live in the Outer Sunset, too, as in at Ocean Beach, as in on the very same block where I live now, as in the apartment building right next door. So I also found a one-time neighbor out in that water. He pushed me into the next wave and I caught my second long ride of the day.

After an hour and a few more short rides, I was ready to take the next wave all the way in, and my lesson partners were another wave or two behind me. We panted on the shore, the exertion of our bodies all the more of a reward for the journey. One woman was celebrating her 40th birthday and had ridden her very first wave all the way in; talk about a way to celebrate. When I rested out that earlier set, I chatted with a local woman in her late 40s to early 50s with long graying blonde hair loose and damp down her wetsuitted back. When I asked, she said she has been surfing for the last five years. I loved that we were three women who started a little later in life. And while I may not get out there again all that soon or with enough regularity to noticeably improve, I was content with the day, the fatigue its own current in my body, the promise of crispy chicken tacos and a cold beer with a good friend.

On the drive home, I also learned that I was taking her home on Highway One for the first time since a devastating car accident two years and a few months ago. On that day she was also leaving a perfect afternoon in Santa Cruz, which I hadn’t realized until yesterday. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to return, much less to take the One, until my last-minute offer of a day to follow the sun out to the beach. I held her hand as we passed the landmark that let us know it had happened there, right on the asphalt disappearing beneath us. We spent the next 30 minutes watching the most magical sunset I believe I’ve ever seen on a day that would have been, of all days, her twelfth anniversary with the partner lost that day. To our left, a long swash of bluish purple cut like a promise through a canvas of pink and orange. After three attempts to make this trip, after five real rides on a surfboard, after an entire day of hypnotic views, she made the bravest journey of all.