Surf's Up!

This surfing post is coming a little late, but I was waiting for this photo (courtesy of Sarah Gray). It was on Sunday, September 27th that a bunch of us went out to Trigg beach for a group surfing lesson. It was pretty much my first time surfing, and it was pretty tough. There were two instructors for about twenty of us, so they couldn't be of much help individually. I think more than a few times the instructor looked at me after I failed to ride a wave and said "Good job!", even though I knew I hadn't done anything right at all. The waves were huge, and it was difficult at times just to paddle out to them. So I found it easier to cheat and just got off my board and walked out there instead. I'm pretty sure that we were supposed to be trying to ride waves post-crash, but most of us paddled out to where the waves were crashing and got destroyed out there instead. I know that I myself had greatly underestimated the shear power of the waves. I remarked later that I had been thrown around so much that I probably was only holding onto my board about 10% of the time (luckily the boards have leases that hook around your ankle). At the very end I did manage to stand up on the last wave in. Unfortunately, this also came at the expense of Sarah Gray, who was also trying to stand up for the first time on her last wave in. I was pretty close to the shore already, and decided to just wait for a wave to come facing forward to make sure I had the correct position. Sarah was riding the wave right towards and had to yell and bail out at the last second. Instead of standing up, she hit me right in the back and actually gave me the perfect boost to get enough speed to catch the wave with balance, and ride the darn thing in standing straight up. I was thrilled. Sarah was not so much. I felt really bad and immediately took the blame for ruining her last chance. She was pretty upset but eventually forgave me. She of course was the only one who had the pictures from surfing, and as much as I wanted to put up a blog post about the experience, with pictures, I was afraid to ask her. It is good though, that it was all resolved in the end. Although, I did ponder later, who was really at fault? Had we been in cars, wouldn't I have been rear-ended?

Also it is important to note that this surfing experience took place during the stunning fourth quarter of the Notre Dame vs. Purdue game. When I signed up for the surfing lesson, I knew that I would miss the end of the game. However, I had been counting on a healthy Notre Dame offense to "make it rain" so to speak on Purdue, leaving the game well in hand by the fourth quarter. As you probably know, this was not the case. Instead, most of us were on a bus to the beach without a clue as to what the score was or who was winning the game, knowing that Purdue was getting ready to score the go ahead touchdown right before we left. Andy finally decided to call his parents on his cell phone to get an update. The update proved to be pretty unnerving. Purdue ahead 21-17... 35 seconds left... Notre Dame has the ball... 3rd down... on the 3 yard line! It was a crazy way to hear a game, listening to someone who is listening to someone else who is on the complete opposite side of the world and watching the game on TV. But the whole bus erupted when we heard that Notre Dame scored to win the game, and the bus driver, who had no idea what was going on, nearly drove right off the road. Anyway, I know it is kinda late to be going back and bringing up that game, but I felt like it was a crucial part of the surfing experience. In fact, for the first three quarters of the game I thought about faking sick just to get out of my commitment to go surfing, just because I wanted to see the game so bad. It turns out I did miss a heck of an ending, but then again, surfing in the Indian Ocean is a pretty special experience too, which I'm really glad I did in the end. Later I found out that back in Tommy More, the infamous internet had cut out again and nobody that stayed behind got to see the last play anyway.

Here we are waiting to hear what will happen on 4th down, 27 seconds to go