Daven Cheu
July 4, 2016
The ocean has been a part of my
life and my dreams for a long time. I soared far above its waves and plunged
into its emerald waters, felt the fog rolling in from the sea and smelled the
salt thrown into the air and the crashing of waves on rocky shores. The
sweeping horizon of boundless blue, especially in the special hour when the sun
rises and paints the sky with vivid colors reflected on the water, has an
alluring majesty, a shear vastness that no desert sunrise can match. Looking
out onto that eternity of water takes my breath away.
Aside from the poetic essence, the
beach below the Scripps Pier was fairly crowded and was quite appropriately
patriotic. The sky was overcast with the sun breaking through every now and
then so the weather didn’t get too hot and the water wasn’t too cold. At first,
and I thought this was hilarious, no one in our group wanted to go into the
water. That changed when Bonnie one of our researchers appeared with surfboards
and boogie boards. I had never surfed before but the basics seemed easy to
understand: lay on the board, paddle, turn into a wave, paddle again and ride
it to shore. I got up to the facing my back to the wave part, but I couldn’t
paddle fast enough to be propelled by the wave. The paddling made my arms tire
to where I couldn’t move them behind my back. The few moments I was able to
catch a wave I didn’t maintain my balance to where I could even kneel. So, in
reality it wasn’t as easy as Bonnie or even Caroline made it appear. Maybe with
practice, and if I bought a board and moved to the coast, I could become good
at surfing and it is indeed interesting to get into, but it’s not realistic for
a person who lives in the desert in the middle of the country. At least not for
now.
Still, the surfing itself was
pretty fun for the limited skillset that I had. On the waves I did catch, the
sense of speed gliding across the water was exhilarating. It was close to
flight. We had a good time, and I would like to spend more time at the beach but
alas, there are other important things for us to do this week so the beach can
wait, but not for long if I don’t do anything to help preserve it.
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| First football then Frisbee throwing. |
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| The girls are debating whether to go in the water or not- until the surf boards and boogie boards arrived! |
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