The day after Uncle Ron arrived in La Cruz, we took a bus over to Punta De Minta and took a surfing lesson from two locals. The guy who taught me how to surf wore Bob Marley swim shorts and was decked out in a few tattoos with Jamaican colors. I was actually disappointed when he didn't start talking with "Dudes" and "Totallys", which I decided could be called surfer lingo. But alas he uttered not a word of surfer lingo.

After we exchanged a brief introduction, he handed James and I what he called "Booties", which I would describe as the surfer version of water socks. He explained they were necessary so our feet didn't get cut on rocks. We made quite the pair as we marched down to the beach with rubber mittens on our feet.

Once on the beach, he instructed us on how and what the steps were for standing up on the board. We then paddled out with ease and stopped when he told us to. We laid there on our boards as we waited for a good wave to come. Before I knew it, he was telling me to turn around and paddle! I felt the wave surge underneath me as I slowly stood up; keeping in mind what he had told us to do. It was a cool feeling of accomplishment and I then understood why people talk about how fun it is! It was easier than I thought it was going to be to stand up and balance on the board because of the instructor giving us a push before we stood up so the board could get farther down into the wave. Let’s just say that when we tried it on our own, James did fabulous! It just didn’t go so well for me.

We were in the water for two hours and I was soon learning that paddling out is almost harder than the actual surfing because you sure do a lot of it. I was pretty sure my noodle arms were going to fall off as time went on. The longer you rode the wave the longer the distance you had to paddle back out. I also learned that when surfers sit on their boards, it is not only to look cool while you rest and wait for a wave, but also so that when a wave does come, you can turn around faster.

When we got back to La Cruz, Dad surprised me and James with an early Christmas present; a used surf board! It is awesome and I can’t wait to try it out!!!!!!!