Tonight, I asked Alvaro what his worst surfing injury has been to date. He told me about a time when a flying surfboard hit him right between the eyes. I'll spare you the gory details about the effect on his face. "It's so important to be calm no matter what happens out there," he added. "If a board hits you, if a shark attacks you, Read more...

When Alvaro and I finish my Sunday morning surfing lessons, it's 9:30 or 10:00 a.m., depending when we started. At that time, more drivers covet spots in the Taco Hell parking lot than are available. So once I reach my car, there's always someone waiting who was driving behind me as I walked over to it. "Are you leaving?" they always ask. My answer is Read more...

"Don' get crazy about it," Alvaro says, his Peruvian accent dropping the "t." Alvaro is my surf instructor. He tells me "don' get crazy about it" a lot: when I'm practicing my pop-ups on the beach, when he sees me paddling toward him in the water, when I breathe in his general direction. The thing is, when I'm surfing, I really *don'* get crazy. When Read more...

This morning, my friend Richard, a Pacifica resident and longtime surfer, joined us in the water. Well, my instructor, fellow student, and I stayed by the shore and surfed the whitewash while Richard paddled out to catch today’s very big waves. I saw him a couple times out there, but I’ve since lost him to a figurative and literal sea of white surfboards. Today, I Read more...

This morning, I confronted my two biggest surfing fears: other surfers and large waves. Unfortunately, these two monsters travel in pairs. It's easy to feel calm about surfing when both the ocean and your fellow surfers are even-tempered. When the waves get excited, surfers do, too: They can get greedy about catching the beautiful waves and be hostile with anyone in the lineup encroaching on Read more...