Surfing

You cannot come to Australia and not try the sport of surfing! I did my first surfing lesson at Manly Beach with my study abroad program. We starting with boogie boarding which I have been doing since I was a little kid in the US. However, I found the boogie boarding much harder in Australia. First of all, the waves were pretty rough which is always a challenge. The hardest part was that the boogie boards had no string to attach to your wrist so you really have to hold on to the board. There were many occasions where I was not able to do this and my boogie board went flying. I was able to catch a lot of waves though so it was a lot of fun and a good warm up for surfing.

The first thing the instructors had us do was practicing getting up on our boards on the sand. I had difficulty on the land popping straight up and instead kept pushing myself up and then taking a step. It definitely required more upper body strength than I had anticipated. Eventually I got the hang of it and was ready to get into the water. I was lucky to have an instructor right by me when I was in the water because he had me lay on the board and helped me to time the waves. I was able to get up five times! I stayed closer to the shore so that I could catch smaller waves but I was still happy to be able to get up. It was a lot of fun to be able to ride the waves all the way in. Overall, the sport required a lot of patients and the timing of getting on the board was crucial. It amazes me the type of waves really surfers can get up on!