Surfing can cause a divorce

We awoke in the dark this morning so that we could be paddling into the surf while the tide was draining out. Facing the sea with my feet dug into the soft sand, I stretched
my stiff limbs in the pale pink, predawn light. Just as a sliver of sun peeked over the clouds in the eastern sky, we waded into the water. Still groggy, I
lollygagged just before a wave snatched my board and hurled me into the churning whitewater.
My friend’s leash, which keeps a surfer tethered to his board, broke and his board flew into the air and floated away. We
turned back to shore to regroup.

He quickly Macgyvered the attachment and we
faced the ocean again. This time, he shouted, “Charge!” and we ran into the warm water with more vim and vigor and quickly paddled through the break zone and
into the lineup where we sat on our boards and waited, staring at the horizon looking for
bumps in the ocean that would turn into surfable waves.

Soon I spotted a promising peak forming in the distance. I egg-beatered my legs until the board spun around and pointed toward
land. Then I laid down and paddled hard. I’d situated myself just to the right
of the wave’s apex, exactly where I wanted to be. With the top of the wave frothing over my
left shoulder, I stroked a few times more before I pressed my hands down
on the front of the board and felt the energy in the building mound of
water lift then propel me forward. I popped up to my feet in a low stance and dropped down the
face of the wave, picking up speed. I could hear my friends whooping and
cheering above the ocean’s roar. At the bottom of the wave, I angled right,
glided toward the palm trees that lined the beach, and then jumped off before
the wave crumbled near shore. I couldn’t stop smiling as I beat my way back
through the surf to return to the lineup.

One friend had been paddling toward me at that moment and
had had a straight view of my feat. He said I looked calm and determined, like a real
surfer. He guessed the wave was head high! I’d had a similarly nice ride a couple days before, but all my friends had gone in for breakfast before me so no one had seen
it. It was as if it had never happened! I was thrilled to have had a reliable witness corroborate the existence of my magnificent ride.

Surfing looks effortless and romantic when you watch surf
videos and dream of endless summer. Sun drenched beautiful people in
gorgeous locations around the world. Legs dangling in clear aqua against a
mellow soundtrack. Popping up on a surfboard and gliding across the horizon,
sometimes with a wall of water curling overhead.

Surfing is not so idyllic when you learn late in
life like me. I got hooked, though, when an instructor standing in waist high
water pushed a surfboard, with me prone on top and windmilling my arms, into
the gentle foam of a tiny wave. I felt the thrill of standing on a
surfboard being propelled by the power of surging water. Once I mastered the
pop-up, the instructor took me out into the lineup and pushed me into larger waves. I was scared and too
hesitant and never got to my feet again after venturing away from the baby waves that
broke close to shore. I vowed to conquer my fear and learn to surf after that.

Around this time, I began considering divorce. I’d already had a
nagging feeling for a couple years that the marriage was holding me back from achieving
my highest potential. I was scared, though, to leave a long marriage
that had not been obviously broken by cheating or one of the other usual catastrophic
ruptures. I was scared at the prospect of being alone for the first time in 18
years. I was scared at having no one to depend on but myself. I was mostly scared of the unknown.

I returned to Costa Rica annually after that week at surf camp and found friends back home with whom I surfed occasionally on the less ideal
Atlantic breaks where the water was cold and big waves pounded close to shore.
I took a long time to improve given so little time in the water to practice.

About four years ago, I had a break through surf session when I
finally figured out how to spot and catch surfable waves without relying on a
more experienced surfer friend to yell, “This one’s yours Pippa! Paddle paddle
paddle!” After I mastered wave spotting, I became more comfortable dropping
into larger waves. Lately I have been figuring out how to turn and surf across
the face of the wave.

My achy and fatigued muscles
remind me that no matter how much I swim and work out at the gym every day, my surfing
muscles never get used enough between surf sessions. I remain a mediocre surfer.

Here at my favorite surf spot in Costa Rica, lugging a 7’10”
surfboard across the length of a sandy football field to the break we call
Pippa’s Rollers has exacerbated my sore neck. 
My arms are too short to reach around the board’s 22” width so sometimes
I hoist the 15–20 pound plank on top of my head and grasp either side with my
hands for balance, which doesn’t work so well when the offshore wind pushes
against the rigid length of an epoxy covered thick foam core. Most of the time I wedge the
edge of the board against the narrowest part of my waist and carry it
perpendicular to my body, switching from one side to the other multiple times
as I lumber along the water’s edge. None of these conveyance methods is as cool
as in the surf videos in which lithe surfers dash across the hot sand with tiny
boards tucked under their arms.

A longboard is perfect for catching waves at Pippa’s
Rollers, though. The small to medium sized waves flow through gently and slowly
almost 300 yards away from land, next to a flat rock reef. I can exit the wave
well before it crashes on the hard-packed sand and pebble beach. The forgiving wave allows me to catch multiple waves in every session.

Paddling through oncoming waves with the bulk of a long
board wears you out fast. You can’t do that cool thing you also see in surf videos called
a duck dive, which is when a surfer submerges the board below a breaking wave by pressing down with her hands and
a knee so that the water cascades over her. A clunky longboard is too buoyant
to push below the surface so a turtle roll must be employed. This maneuver
entails flipping over just before the wave crashes on you while grasping the
board over your body as if you’re laying on it upside down. After the wave passes over, you flip back on top and
paddle onward. Each time you do this, the wave drags you back a little closer
to shore unless you kick a little while you’re still underwater. Sometimes you
have to do this several times before you get past the impact zone. The inelegant
and utterly uncool turtle roll is, at least, a great ab workout!

After several turtle rolls and a long paddle, I usually sit
on my board just outside the lineup to rest my arms and catch my
breath. Outside the lineup, the waves are still bumps that you peacefully float over while staring at the horizon, relaxed and
meditative. Some days, though, a strong current means you have to keep
paddling to stay in place.

The waves usually break in about the same place. Once you
figure out where that spot is, you align yourself with a marker on the beach to
maintain your position. On a high tide at Pippa’s Rollers, I
triangulate with a bright green house and a statue of a mermaid called La Sirena
that sits on a pile of rock that juts out at the farthest point of the reef.
During low tide, I move over to the right a little bit and line up with a tall
almond tree that is home to several pairs of multi-colored macaws that squawk in
the early evenings and throw down the leathery gray-green outer shells of
almonds they have gnawed through for the nutty flesh inside. If I drift over
too far to the left, my feet sometimes land on the flat rocks, which are menacingly
exposed to the air by the outgoing tide. We walk across these same rocks at low tide to visit La Sirena.

The first couple days after we arrived late last week, the waves were
bigger and steeper than they have been today. I was a little late taking off on one wave and almost slid off the scantly waxed board before losing
control and wiping out. The wave broke on top of me and the water’s heavy weight held me down
for a couple beats beyond comfort. I swam toward sunlight and burst through the
water’s surface sputtering for air.

Learning to surf helped me gain confidence in my physical abilities,
despite the bruises, muscle soreness, and fatigue. Surfing also helped me conquer
fear and taught me that I had the mental fortitude to face the
unknown and to thrive in uncharted territory.