Surfing is Addictive
I love to surf. Can’t be any simpler than that. I found surfing a number of years ago while on vacation in Oahu, Hawaii. I had been in Hawaii a couple times already but this was my first visit to Oahu and with that, a visit there isn’t complete until you head to the North Shore. It was January at the time and the winter storms from the north in the Pacific Ocean were slamming the northern part of the island and it was going off, as surfers like to say. I remember stopping the car on the side of the road and running across the street to see what everyone else was stopped for and looking at. There it was in all it’s glory, the power of the ocean and the people trying to tame it. It was an amazing site. It was one of those moments which don’t come often in life that when you see something, you know you have to do it. I immediately felt it was something I just had to experience for myself.
Fast forward to today I am still surfing and will continue to until I die or am debilitated to the point where I can’t move anymore. It’s that powerful of a driving force in me to want to continue. There’s something about that direct connection with nature that I have yet to find anywhere else personally. I got my wife to try surfing with me once, but she didn’t like it as she felt too claustrophobic in the wetsuit. Which is understandable if you don’t like tight fitting items on your body. Surfing in Northern California you need to wear a wetsuit all year as the temperature, depending on where you go, is from the low 50’s to the mid 60’s if your lucky. The summer months here are typically colder than other times during the year due to the fog that rolls in just about daily. It isn’t until late in the summer that you get a few consistent days of solid warmer air temperatures. Southern California has warmer water temperatures but also suffers from the summer fog months. It’s also a very dangerous sport. My wife doesn’t like the fact that you can get held under the water by even the smallest of waves, and if you panic, well you just can’t allow yourself to panic.