Every once in a while, a friend talks me into trying some new activity that they are convinced is the most fun ever. This accounts for my attempts at water skiing, snowboarding, windsurfing, scuba diving, inline roller skating, and jumping off the high diving board at the community pool. In spite of the good intentions of my friends, and their valiant but futile attempts to instruct me, I have been a spectacular failure at every one of these. But it's only after they have actually seen me fall, sink, face-plant, crash, tumble, sputter, or keel over while standing perfectly still, do they admit that I must have some genetic deficiency that makes me better suited for sitting under a beach umbrella with a beer. And yet, thanks to human ingenuity, there always seems to be some new athletic challenge that just might turn out to be my thing. Last weekend, that challenge was stand up paddling.
For those who are not familiar with this activity, stand up paddling involves a really big surfboard, a really long paddle, and for most people, really flat water. You put the board in the water, you stand on the board, and you propel yourself around with a sweeping stroke of the paddle. Real surfers don't think much of stand up paddlers. I heard one refer to them derogatorily as beach janitors because of their slow, sweeping motions with the paddles. Real surfers hate it when they're riding a wave and a beach janitor sweeps by right in front of them. So mostly real surfers and stand up paddlers stake out different territories on the ocean.
Stand up paddling - fun for the whole family!
In Maui, you can go to almost any beach on the south or west sides and see all kinds of people, of all different abilities, young and old, cruising around on their stand up boards. According to a recent article about stand up paddling in Connecticut, of all places, "anyone can stand up on the board and paddle on the ocean." I beg to differ.
My friend let me try stand up paddling on her new, lightweight board, which was probably a mistake (I saw her checking it out for damage after I returned it to her). It took me approximately 10 seconds to fall off for the first time. That pretty much established the pattern for the rest of my relationship with the board. There is something misleading about the term "flat water." Water is not flat. I will put money on that. Several times, as I was heaving myself back onto the board after cartwheeling into the ocean, some well meaning soul, a 90-year old geriatric or a kid with one leg, would paddle by and offer me words of encouragement. "Everyone falls off the first time!" "Use the paddle to help you balance!" "Don't look at the board, look at the horizon!" I felt sorry for them. They had no idea who they were dealing with.
I looked like this for about 30 seconds, max.
All the while I was trying to give it a go, my friend was paddling slowly around me, telling me how well I was doing, and actually keeping a straight face while she said this. I finally called it quits when my legs started to shake and a fair amount of the ocean had gone up my nose. By this time I had drifted almost out of sight of the place I had started and the only way I could get back was to paddle laboriously from a kneeling position, which made paddling feel like I was waving a flag pole.
And so I add another attempt to my scrapbook of (to borrow from David Foster Wallace) supposedly fun things I'll never do again. Well, maybe one more time. Just to be sure.
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