Watersports

As Kara mentioned on her blog, we tried surfing over the weekend. But this wasn’t beginner friendly surfing, it was “here’s a board, go try it” surfing. Kat called us on Sunday and told us that she was meeting a friend, Tim-boy, at Breakwall in Lahaina and we could join if we wanted to try our hand (foot?) at surfing. Tim-boy had an extra board already out at the beach, so we picked up one more at his house and headed out there. Kara and Kat went out first but before Kara could even try anything, she got nailed in the back of the head by a stray board. She returned to the shore and once I had her sitting down and she assured me that she was alright, I took the extra board out.

First off, paddling a giant board past all the breaking waves is tough work! My pecs definitely got a workout that day. Once I got out to where the waves were rolling in, I tried getting up quite a few times. I felt like I was catching the waves, but I just didn’t know how best to get in an upright position on the board. With no one out there telling me what I was doing wrong, it was really quite futile. But I had fun anyway, I figured I’ll have plenty of time to really figure out how to do it, so this was just an introduction to controlling a surfboard while not standing.

Today I signed Kara and myself up for SCUBA lessons! We’re doing a PADI open water certification; our all day lessons are on August 13, 19, and 20. I rode my bike out to Maui Dreams Dive Co. today after work to sign up and they gave me a packet of information to study up on before our first lesson. We have to read a 250 page book and take a bunch of open-book tests before we can even get in the water! And I’m so excited about it that I’m already 40 pages into it!

I’m surprised at how much I’ve already learned. Like, did you know that you NEVER want to hold your breath while SCUBA diving? As you ascend, the air in your lungs expand, so if you’re breathing normal the air escapes naturally. But if you hold your breath, your lungs can rupture!! Yikes! Also, did you know that your nose is enclosed in your mask for a more practical reason besides “keeping your nose dry?” As you dive, the air in your mask compresses, so you must equalize the pressure in your mask by exhaling air into your mask! Wow! Pretty much all the stuff I’ve learned so far is about air under pressure, who knew it could be so interesting!