We sat on a California beach under an overcast sky.
Before us stood our instructor, Terry Simms, a lanky, tan, blond guy who has found comfort, a challenge and a livelihood maneuvering a long piece of fiberglass through the rough and tumble coastline shorebreak.
Before him sat 10 wannabe’s who had signed up for five days of instruction at the Paskowitz Surf Camp headquartered in this beach community midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Paskowitz, which uses San Onofre State Beach as its training ground, is one of several surf schools along the Southern California coast.
Half of the class, like myself, were novices, seduced by surf magazines into wondering if we could learn to glide down a wave’s face propelled toward the shore by a force that could, just as easily, drag us like ragdolls along the rocky sea floor.
The other half had some experience. They were there to build on what they knew.
“I surf at home, but I don’t surf well,” said Andy McKenna, 33, who had come all the way from Dublin to join the class. “I also came here to jump into the Pacific Ocean. It’s just one of those things you’ve got to have done in your life.”
As for me, I’d grown up in Los Angeles, but if anyone surfed at my high school, I never knew it. African-Americans didn’t. Surfing was something white males did — Hawaiians too, but I didn’t know that then.
I first got the chance to try 12 years ago in Hawaii on the island of Maui. I took private lessons on a polystyrene board, and the next day, after more than 15 attempts, I managed to stand up for a wave. Once.
So my goal for the week was modest: to stand up. Once. Again.
But whatever our goals, it was for all of us a week’s vacation on a California beach, with starry nights in canvas tents pitched in a nearby state park. And it was an opportunity to mingle with members of an attractively aloof, young and tanned subculture that ordinarily posts few invitations to outsiders.
Before us three- to four-foot waves formed and folded as green helicopters flew overhead from the nearby Camp Pendleton Marine Corps training center. Just south of us stood the metallic twin teats that comprise the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant.
Every day we were taken in vans the few miles from our night campsite to a day site on the beach.
First, Simms taught us the basics: how to affix the board’s tether to an ankle to keep our boards within reach, how to give each other enough space to minimize collisions, how to paddle over oncoming waves and how to cover our heads so our boards didn’t whack us when we fell.
He also advised us not to worry about sharks — they wouldn’t pose a problem in the shallowish water we’d be in.
Then, he assigned us boards and counselors (about one to three students) and sent us to our watery workout.
My board was a 40-pound, 12-foot Stewart that ordinarily would be used by couples who were tandem surfing. Simms said long boards are easier to learn on but hard to master or control, while shorter boards (of about 6 or 7 feet) are easier to master but hard to start with.
Still, heading out was work.
I’m no longer that young (39 1/2) and not in particularly great shape, but I’m scrappy. I went thinking that if I want to do something REEEEEEAL bad, I would be able to do it. Mind over muscles. Brains over brawn.
Well . . .
Paddling out to the “inside,” a place where waves already have formed and broken, was pure exertion and frustration. As soon as I felt I was making progress, a wave would come along and knock me and my board backward. It did the same for two other younger woman novices.
“Paddle, paddle, paddle,” the counselors urged us as we struggled to propel ourselves out to the point where they stood, occasionally ducking the coming waves.
We’d plunge both arms into the water, our bodies flat to the board. When a wave approached, we’d hold the sides (or rails) of our boards and push our upper bodies up, as we turned our faces away from the oncoming water. We’d paddle forward 10 feet, the waves would push us back 5.
Once we had made it out to Simms and another instructor, Simms would turn our boards around so we faced the shore and push us to help us catch a coming wave.
With the push, as we gripped the rails, we were to bring our knees under our chests. Then, we were to move from that stance onto one foot and, gradually, to stand.
Soon Simms was giving us our push into a passing wave while our knees were already in place on the board and off we’d go with instructions to “get up,” feeling the water carry us, finding our balance and eventually beginning to move onto our feet before tumbling back into the Pacific’s salty, cool shallows.
Even falling was fun if we’d gotten a bit of a ride.
By lunchtime, physically exhausted and eager to chase the saltwater taste from our mouths, we’d head to the day campsite on the beach, lunch on submarine sandwiches, fruit, chips and dips, and we’d relax as Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, the elder of the family (whose son Izzy — Israel — runs the surf camp), talked to us about surfing, a sport he started at 12 and still enjoys at 77.
In a soft voice, he talked of surfing as a cosmic pursuit. The waves we were riding had traveled from a storm on the other side of the world to roll in at San Onofre, he explained. Meteorology, electromagnetic fields and gravity had combined to create these “children of the heavens.”
Surfing the waves and communing with them as a spiritual endeavor may be “a little far out,” he said, “but if you think it’s too far out, just think of how you feel when you stand up. There’s something in it that’s very magical.”
After Doc’s talk, we’d take an hour to sunbathe, read, nap or chat. Then we would stretch on the wetsuits and head out again for an afternoon session. At night, after a vigorous 50-cent shower (the state park charges 25 cents for three minutes), we would watch surf videos in a tent.
The next day we’d do it all again.
On Friday morning, our last day, I did stand up. Not all the way up, mind you. My knees were bent at 30-degree angles (and locked like rusty hinges), but my feet were flat and my arms were out and I was screaming with surprise and elation.
Later that day, Simms and I took off to tandem (two-on-a-board) surf. We paddled to the “outside,” where the waves form and where skilled surfers sit astride their boards waiting for the right swell. My hands were shaking, either from the cold or the fear I was trying to stifle.
On command, Simms said, “Paddle,” and I did until I felt the board moving on its own, skimming over the crest and down the face of the wave as it broke. I was aware of the board moving downward and the turbulent white water crashing around us. I don’t know if I was breathing. As I tried to stand, I fell and he followed.
Later Izzy Paskowitz’s brother, Jonathan, and I gave tandem surfing a couple more tries until I found myself screaming again, standing again, as we approached the shallows. “When I say so, just fall off the back,” he said. And, upon his command, we did, letting the untethered board head to shore.
It was magic.
IF YOU GO
THE DETAILS
Paskowitz Surf Camp offers its one-week (Monday through Friday) camp from the first week in June to the first week in October. Some sessions are for adults only, while others are geared for younger learners.
A week of lessons costs $900 and includes lodging at the campsite, transport to the beach, meals, wetsuits, use of surfboards and instruction. You must bring your own towel, bathing suit, sunblock, sleeping bag, toiletries — and quarters for the showers.
INFORMATION
Paskowitz Surf Camp, P.O. Box 522, San Clemente, CA 92674; 714-361-WAVE; e-mail surfcamp@aol.com; Website: www.godirect-cards.com/usa/california/pa skowitz.html.
