Check That off my Bucket-List...

 I don't know whether you have picked it up through my past blog posts...but I have wanted to learn how to surf for a relatively long, long time. I love surf photography (as much as I love photography as a whole) and I l o v e the ocean. I think the ocean is one of God's most awesome creations--scary as it can be at times.  But during the vacation I was on for the bulk of the month of January, I learned to surf! Which was like, the highlight of my holiday...and probably an experience I will never forget.

Yes, I do admit that I still need a LOT of improvement when it comes to surfing, but during the roughly 5 hours that I have surfed in my life now (facepalm...what?? only 5 hours?! I rest my case.) I learned a couple of great lessons which apply to life outside the water. The most important lesson of which was perseverance. After about 2 hours trying to surf, I was so exhausted that I couldn't even push myself up from the board. The waves got rough and hard to move through, and in my opinion there was a lack of really good waves to "surf." I was aiming for better waves than those miniature little "foamies" that kept pestering me... But even though those waves were small, they packed some punch! I was so tired of lifting my board continually and not getting a chance to surf while others around me were getting better with each wave I [also] missed. But I remembered just when I felt like giving up that I had to persevere and, most importantly, focus on having fun (as our instructor had pointed out very clearly at the start of the lesson) and not on the others' surfing. Just then the right wave came and I got onto my board, and stood for the first time. This hit home because in any tough situation the key to conquering it is not in letting yourself stay down, or worse: bail out, but the key is in pushing forward while trusting God to give you strength to do it, because most of the times there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[Another thing I learnt--of course--was that surfing doesn't come easy, especially for those less fit than others... For 4 days (or was it more?) I felt every muscle in my body ache--it felt like the aches were actually working through one muscle after the other, so I was limping a lot. My legs also felt as if they were sweltering and pounding (a.k.a. bad sunburn, so a top tip for anyone wanting to surf is: cover yourself with sunscreen until you look like a snowman), and I had bruises all over the place. However, it felt good to know that all these ridiculous aches and stuff were for a worthwhile cause.]

Heading out for the 1st time & not knowing what we were letting ourselves in for...

And the next day we went back, immense pain and all, because the surfing bug had bitten us...