Boogie Boarding

It is cold outside now and I’m thinking of the ocean. I like the cold, the way it fights its way around your collar and chills your neck, waking you from your oblivion and reminding you that you are alive. I like the briskness it puts in people’s step as they walk across a parking lot, seeking shelter in a warmer place. I like coats and boots, gloves and scarves, the 5 minutes of frigid tenseness as I wait for my vehicle to warm enough so that the heater blows warm air. I like the feel of a cold pane of a window beneath my palms and the tip of my nose, the gentle quiet of a falling flake of snow. I look forward to the cold. Dream of the cold. Welcome the cold. But it is cold outside today and I am thinking of the ocean. And it is warm there. I am not sure I would so much like the cold if I didn’t know there are places where it is warm.

I’m thinking of the ocean because I’m thinking of boogie-boarding. I haven’t been in quite awhile.

I was 14 the first time I caught a wave, lying on the face of the Pacific in a cove somewhere in Costa Rica. It was not as easy as it looked at first, and the waves were unforgiving, but my teacher, a Costa Rican boy a year or two my junior, was able to help me navigate the new environment on my cheap and well-worn board, rented from a vendor just up the beach and past the helado stand, 5 Colons for 2 hours.

Riding a boogie board is all about judging waves, determining where they will break while they are still a good way off from shore and then swimming into the proper position to take advantage of the wave’s energy. When properly timed, the wave will seem as if it is just about to crash on the rider before pulling you into its embrace, up on to its crest, and then hurling you forward atop its foamy remnants and depositing you on shore. A good ride on a good wave will in a matter of seconds move a rider from out beyond most of the smaller breakers and all the way to the barely-damp sand where tentative footprints of would-be waders are washed away, only to be replaced moments later by children chasing the retreating foam. It is quite a ride, and I was hooked from the first one.

A misjudged wave can be either benign or disastrous. In the best case scenario the swell will simply wash underneath the rider, breaking too late to be caught, but causing no need for evasive action. A wave breaking early, however, and just over the rider’s head, can throw you around like a rag doll, head over heels, and then pin you to the bottom until the wave subsides. If you are lucky, you will be able to regain your composure before the next wave treats you the exact same way. The ocean is relentless.

There are ways to mitigate some of this effect. When faced with a wave crashing over your head, the first instinct is to tense your body and stand your ground, bracing yourself against the wave, but this only exacerbates the effect. A better, though counterintuitive action, is to completely relax your body—to become part of the wave instead of a standing against it. It still makes for a churning ride, but you end up with far fewer bruises and scratches.

But there is something better, still, that you can do when the wave is coming and you realize that it will neither wash gently beneath you or take you for a wonderful ride. The best thing to do is to turn and face the wave, staring straight into it, and dive headlong and with all your might directly into the curving wall of water. When everything in you says stand firm or run the other way, the best thing to do is to face the wave head on. In this way you pierce straight through the wave, with only the smallest profile of your body diverting the energy of the wave around you. Soon thereafter you emerge on the other side of the wave, no worse for your baptism, and poised to catch a ride back to shore.

Though this technique was among the first my Costa-Rican friend taught me that first day in the Pacific, I have forgotten it several times, and I always have to retrain my body when I am lucky enough to have an opportunity to ride a wave. And so I’ve scraped knees, bruised shoulders, and filled plenty of swim trunks with sand as I have turned my back on the crashing waves of the ice-cold Pacific or stood in defiance against breakers in the Atlantic. All while I knew the secret, the key to avoiding the inevitable pain.

Life is a lot like the waves, in constant motion, the ebb and flow rising and falling and depositing us where it will. We float atop it and wait for an exhilarating ride, and those rides sometimes come. But we misjudge a number of waves, and for this there can be great consequences. Sometimes it is too late, and the only thing to do is to let go, to relax for the churn in the drink and come up spitting and gasping for air. But sometimes there is time to act, and for those who find it, they would do well to remember the lesson I learned on that Pacific shore so many years ago: When the wave is sure to crash over you, close your eyes and dive toward it with all of your might.