surfing
This past Sunday I decided that it would be a good idea for me to start surfing again. The last time I was on a surfboard was sometime around May and I have been dying to get back on a board since. We hit short sands beach around noon just in time for high tide to roll in. At short sands high tide is the greatest time to surf but the swells were coming in at 11ft at 13 seconds, which basically translates into a good time, so high tide was not affecting the waves much. I climbed into my wetsuit, put my booties on, stretched the gloves over my hands and shoved my head through a neoprene hood. I was ready to go surfing in the frigid waters of the Oregon coast.
I grabbed my board, strapped on the leash and headed for the water. The lineup was in its usual place several hundred feet offshore and my battles with the waves began about 40 feet offshore, about the place where the water drops down to a depth greater than 6 ft. It felt good to duck dive beneath the waves and my paddling was almost as strong as it was before I left for the summer. I was quickly making my way to the lineup when...
I started coughing. Uggh, the sinus infection that I have had for the past several weeks is still with me. The problem is not just a cough it is that when I cough I can't stop coughing. The intense coughing causes me to exhale all of the air in my lungs?and eventually I get to a point where I am gasping for air. This is not a good thing when you have an eight foot wave about to crash down on you forcing you underwater for a good 20 to 30 seconds. Salt water tastes great but I don't want it in my lungs.
Still coughing I reluctantly turned around and grabbed the first soupy wave back to shore. It took a few waves but I eventually made it safely back to shore and sat there, still coughing, pissed off that I can't breath.
OK so here's the deal, I have a ton of journal entries to write up but school is keeping me pretty busy so I haven't had the opportunity to type them up, additionally I have pretty limited access to a computer. I will get to them however. I still have my trip to Paris and the flight down to Marseille to write about not to mention the entire first week of classes. I will get to them as soon as possible, maybe I'll go to an internet cafe.
What I do want to write about right now is surfing. When I arrived on Sunday Jenson was already in Marseille and was waiting for us. When the plane touched down he told me exactly what I had suspected. People did surf in Marseille. I have been talking about surfing in Marseille for months but everyone thought I was crazy. After all does the Mediterrean have waves? YES!!! it does, they are very small but gosh-dangit they are rideable.
The problem is that they are not consistent, last sunday the sea was producing some decent waves due to heavy winds out to sea. Unfortunately for me this entire week the wind has died down and the waves are not been produced. Freakin' eh, I just want to surf one small meditterean wave.
So everyday I'm checking the buoy and wind reports, one of these something is going to happen. I just know it ;)
It has been a while since we last spoke, how are you doing? I'm doing fine, school is keeping me pretty busy as usual, I have a list of callbacks that seems to be growing by the minute and my email inbox is full of people I haven't responded to. If you are one of those people, I apologize. Please understand how busy I am, way too much homework and Sundays are my only day of rest. I hope you understand it when I say that I'd rather be surfing on Sunday rather than sitting in front of my computer responding to a million emails. Surfing allows me to relax and I personally believe that it is something I need, one day of rest out of a hectic week.
Hmm, what have I been up to you, you ask. One Word, school. This term I am only working with the Surf Club, I have backed away from Beta Alpha Psi, the snowboard club (season's over), student politics, campus rec center and a plethora of other groups that I was involved in. I need the time to focus on my studies. Fortunately my lack of time hasn't hurt my G.P.A rather it has hurt the amount of sleep I get every night. This term has been pretty good so far. I am taking three classes; Financial Statement Analysis, Managment strategy and I started my business project. My busines project is quite fun. Fortune smiled upon our group and we were able to work with a great company on a very interesting project. Unfortunately we are all under a N.D.A so I can't tell you anything about it except that I am learning a LOT.
Summer Plans,
Oh summer plans, summer plans. My have those changed. Originally I was heading to France for a month and then I was going to trip around Europe for another month. Nope, that ain't going to happen anymore. I am still going to France for a month to finish my studies but afterwards Jenson and I have decided to head west to Spain instead of tripping around Europe. I am going to spend one month in the town of Salamanca, Spain at a language school there. Each morning for four hours, five days out of the week I am going to be attending spanish courses. After classes we'll be heading out on field trips and exploring the town.
One of the weekend we are going to leave immediately after class and return late on monday (most likely skip classes that day). The destination: Portugal on surfing safari. I've begun the research and I have found a few good breaks that should provide some decent waves during that time of year. Summer isn't the best time for surfing in Portugal/Spain BUT some places still do go off and it is our quest to find those breaks and surf them. Well it's my quest at least.
I am still returning from Europe on the same date, August 10th. I am going to kick back in Oregon and finish my business project until approximately August 27th and then I'm headingto Florida to visit my parents. I'm not sure on that exact date yet (it may be earlier). I will pin down that date pretty soon and let everyone know as soon as I do. I will be purchasing plane ticket(s) before I leave for Europe.
Welp, I better get back to my homework. Until another day.
