Hang 20: Safety First

I am a competitive person. I am the first person to admit this. Although we are doing the Helen Woodward Surf Dog Surf a thon to have fun, there is admittedly some small part of me that is whispering, “But next year we’re taking this thing.”

This year we are just trying to stay on the board for a full set. That being said, I’m not one to turn down a surf lesson, so on Sunday Brody and I headed down to the World’s Best Dog Beach (aka Coronado) for our lesson with Evan the Surf Instructor. I had heard mutterings on the news that there was particularly high surf this weekend in San Diego, but the Coronado beach is usually pretty protected.

After about 5 minutes of waiting by the entrance, letting Brody soak in the glory and attention that only comes with being a gorgeous Golden in a hot pink rashguard, we were approached by a person who was clearly Evan the Surf Instructor. (Surf instructors have a certain aura about them.)

“The waves are a little gnarly today,” was how he started.

I’m not fluent in surfer, but I get the gist. This was bad gnarly, not good gnarly.

“We could go out but I think you’d get a little mashed and smashed,” he continued.

I nodded.

It continued for a few more minutes like this, with a few “epics” and “rips” and “hard breaks” thrown in for good measure. Long story short, Evan had determined that the most likely outcome of a surf lesson on this beautiful but treacherous day would be a broken bone or two.

I went out to the beach a little later, to see what Evan was talking about. It was pretty major. The waves were rising out of the shallows in solid 8-10 foot walls and collapsing straight down on the shoreline. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the dogs running around were hanging back saying, “nuh uh.”

We postponed the lesson to later this week, when the surf dies down. I really appreciated Evan’s caution with us noobs. I probably wouldn’t have known the difference had we headed out there, at least not until someone died. It would have sucked and Brody would have ended up terrified of the water. So to Evan the Surf Instructor, I salute you. Thank you for not drowning my dog in the name of good fun. We still had a great time making a scene on shore.

On Thursday, we’re kicking butt.