Learning to surf

This is the story how I got to stand on a surfboard by loosing my badge.

It all started more than a month ago. I took the shuttle bus towards downtown Berkeley and had my LBL badge still attached to my pocket. I got off the bus and the next time I checked, my badge was gone and only the clip remained on the pocket. Well, this wasn't the best thing and I got worried what to do next. And I don't recommend to do this if you want to learn how to surf.

At the end it was less problematic than I imagined and a friendly finder, working a the lab as well, wrote me an email so I could pick it up the next day. Said and done, we met and soon after we met again for a after work drink with more colleagues from the lab. Almost all of them international students and eager to explore California. That's more like what you want to do.

And this is the result:

I know, not really impressive. But it was my first day surfing. And thanks to the very good help of Goncalo, I was able to stand on the board after trying something like one and half hour.
The first time we were a group of five people from Brazil, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Quite international and we had a such great time, that we went again the next weekend with more people. Goncalo was the most expertized and showed us how to do it.
First we had to look for a good spot with nice waves. Not really big ones, but some with lots of white water. A wave that breaks not too close to the shore and has lots of foam, which has enough force to grab the board and carry you along. After wet-suiting up, we took the boards and went into the water. Getting familiar with the board, paddling around and waiting for waves.

Then once you see a wave coming, you paddle hard to get speed and hope to be fast enough to catch the wave.

It was not always a success and sometimes I didn't get up or was flipped over or worse.

It can be that you have to wait some time until a good looking waves comes into your direction. Or you try to move around to the best spot. But there were many other surfers, and I didn't wanted to get to much into their way. And paddling is quite exhausting, so one important point is to keep your energy for the time when a wave comes.

I call standing on the board on the first day a success and I didn't mind that my arms and back hurt for the next days. Many bruises collected and more important many good new experiences made.