I wanted to get my son into surfing for a while now but he was always more into the traditional sports in school like baseball etc. But this past spring he decided that he wanted to learn to surf.
While we were waiting for the weather to get warmer, we went over some of the fundamentals and etiquette before he went in for the first time. Ya never really know how much of that is sinking in. But if you've surfed long enough, you probably know the ocean has a way of correcting you, if you try to skip any of that.
After a few surf sessions he was starting to gain confidence and taking bigger waves. And joked about taking a party wave when he gets good enough.
Then one day the waves were picking up and had some size.. i was on a shortboard and he had the softop. I dropped into a wave going backside and i see my son paddling back out in front of me. I took the high line so i could go around him and he paddled toward the whitewater. Right around the time i thought it was a victory for surf etiquette.. i started to cutback towards the whitewater and i see my son’s softop bouncing around in the soup. I'm thinking that’s weird maybe his leash came off? Then his board fully emerged from the wave and suddenly i see my son still holding onto his board while he's careening towards shore and we're both looking at each other laughing and in shock.
He said he tried to just punch through the wave, instead of turn turtle, but it spun him back around and he was somehow bellyboarding back to shore before he realized what had happened haha
It wasn't really the party wave that i had imagined but its still something I'll never forget.
By the end of the summer, he was totally hooked on surfing and now he's counting the days until the water is warm enough to venture back in again
