Friday was a disaster, and I have decided to never speak to my friends again… at least not for a week or so. After all, they know that I can’t surf. I just don’t have the hand-eye coordination for it… or apparently the ability to balance on a moving board. But they tricked me into it anyway. Here is the story.

Early Friday morning I got a call from Leilani. She was planning a day at the beach and wanted to know if I would come. Since I had nothing better to do, I agreed and soon I was in her jeep and headed to the water. But what she didn’t tell me was that we were all going surfing and that she had already signed me up for a surfing lesson.

I literally felt like a toddler, which isn’t surprising considering the fact that I was in a group lesson with two six-year-olds. We drove up, they told me of the deception, they smiled, I cringed, and soon I was in the clutches of the Hawaiian Surfing Adventures surfing instructor. It was going to be a long day.

Now I should probably point out that my surfing instructor was very patient and probably the nicest instructor I’ve ever had. The last surfing lesson I had was on the south shore, and that instructor was good but serious. This one was funny and sweet, almost making me want to suddenly regain my sense of balance and be the best surfer I could be. Unfortunately, my best is still pretty bad.

The lesson itself was about two hours long, though it felt like an eternity with my friends all watching and cheering, surfing like pros while I fell over and over again. Luckily for me the local schools hadn’t let out yet, so at least there were no professional-level high school students there to laugh at me. I was also given a soft-top surfboard, so falling didn’t hurt nearly as much as I remembered it hurting.

And I guess the first part of the lesson wasn’t so bad… of course, that part was all done on the beach. We watched the ocean, talked about the ocean, pretended to paddle while on the beach, learned the surfing positions, and read the waves. And yes, I could do all of those things, just as long as I didn’t have to do them on the water. Of course, the next hour and a half was pure torture.

While I got the standing up part down, I couldn’t ever stay standing, and not once did I make it back to the beach without falling off. I’m just not that competent. At the end of my lesson, the instructor was encouraging and tried to convince me that I’d done fairly well. If he had realized that I was a native, however, I think he would have just laughed.

Hawaiian Surfing Adventures gives all of their students the option of renting the surf board after their lesson for $5, allowing them to surf for the entire day and practice as much as they want. I turned down the offer, however. And when my friends came back for lunch, I let them all have it.

I think they felt sufficiently bad, because they did take me home after that. Leilani even called to apologize later, insisting that she thought I would have a good time. That was nice. So, I will probably continue to be mad for another few days and then let up a bit. After all, I did drag them to a poetry reading a few months back, and they really hated that!