You have to understand something about me: I do not know how to surf. At all. So obviously I was a little nervous that I was going to fail miserably.

My foam board was large, and being 5’6″ and 110 lbs, there wasn’t a whole lot of power behind my body getting that massive board over the waves. Once I finally made it to where the waves were breaking, a beautiful one started to develop. My instructor told me to paddle hard and gave me a sturdy push. I popped up, and would you know it, I stayed up and rode the whole wave.

Not sucking at surfing: check.

The rest of the morning was a more grueling experience. I learned a new phrase in Spanish today. “Estoy muy cansada.” I am very tired.

There’s a swell in Tamarindo for the next several days, so the waves were slightly aggressive. To avoid having the waves crash over me, I would “turtle roll.” This is a maneuver where I drop my body into the water with the board on my head as the wave rolls over. But doing this for wave after wave after wave? I ended up swallowing the whole ocean.

Then came the paddling.

My little chicken arms were not ready for the brutal beating I was about to put them through. I’ve never known the true meaning of exhaustion until today.

But besides all of that, once I finally got out there to the break, I was hitting almost every wave I went for. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about the next week. Word on the street is that my instructor will be upgrading my board to a hard shell so I can learn how to turn. Exciting developments!