I surfed!!!! Or at least I stood and rode a wave in (several actually) on my first day! I can’t believe I did it so soon– it took me a few tries, but the 1-2-3 method was actually pretty helpful. Zuqueto had us stay ‘in the foam’, so we catch our waves after they break… but its still very fast and strong…. certainly not how I envisioned foam. He had us practice just the paddling and pushing our upper body up for the first few waves, then we were supposed to do the real thing. It took me a couple of tries, but I eventually got up (not so gracefully) and found enough balance to stay on the board for a bit…. The day ended with my most spectacular move – caught a good wave, rode it straight to the shore and straight into Julie’s board, flying up in the air and breaking one of the fins in the process. Of course, this is all captured on video, which we watching repeatedly in slow motion over and over.
The beach we’ve been surfing on is Engenhoca. Like all the beaches here, its surrounded by the rain forest and is quite secluded. Sometimes a group of tourists might show up, but mostly its empty except for our surf group and the guys running the coconut and tapioca stand. The beach sort of feels like an episode from Lost. Typically you have to walk 40 minutes down a trail from the road to reach the it (while carrying your board), but it seems as though our instructors are in with the gate keeper so we fortunately have been able to drive to the beach!
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