Boogy time!

 
 
 
Tiny waves, nice weather, and some new Viper swim fins. Met Brian at Judah at 7am for a fun session. Super mellow waves, not as good as yesterday, and my first time riding a bodyboard since I was 13. It was fun though, caught a few pretty long rides, and since I was prone they seemed maybe a tiny bit bigger than if I was standing. I'm not used to kicking so much, my feet and ankles were tired after half an hour. Brian caught a couple decent little ones, and we bullshit for a while before heading in. Riding a boogy board felt silly, but fun, I felt like a kid again. It brought back memories of childhood, riding a styrofoam board in the whitewash all the way into the sand and thinking it was sooo awesome. I bugged my parents until they bought me a pink Morey Boogey in Cape May, NJ. I used to buy Australian bodyboarder mags and get stoked on riding mush waves in Breezy Point, Queens. Eventually I was standing on the thing and pretending it was a surfboard. Shit, I must've been really light back then.
I didn't intend this post to turn into a brief history of my surfing career, but I guess that's where it's going. After getting good standing on the pink boogyboard, I was intent on learning to surf for real, having watched a lot of the older kids. My mom convinced one of the kids who worked at the tennis courts of the beach club, Liam, to take me out one day. It was late summer, and the waves were actually decent (for NY). He took me out on his T&C shortboard, and with no real instruction, told me to paddle for a wave that was closing on me. I tried to take the late drop totally straight, pearled, and ate shit. Probably similar to many beginner experiences...I went for a few more, but Liam wanted to surf more, so that was the end of that. The next year, my aunt and uncle moved into a house in Jersey, and the previous owner had left a 7' Bahn singlefin in the basement. They offered it to me, and my boogyboarding days were over. My buddy Andrew inherited an old G&S from his dad, and we took to the surf. The Bahn was way more buoyant, and I got to my feet on the first wave I caught, rode it until the skeg ground into the sand. I was 13 or 14 at the time. The next year, after borrowing a friend's board and realizing how much easier it was to turn on a newer style board, I convinced mom to buy me a 6'10" Australian. It was on sale for only $120, because the deck was all warped, despite it being brand new. Anyways, this post is getting too long, and I have work to do, so I'll continue the history in a later post. Who knew boogyboarding would be so nostalgic?