Summer Stories -- Catching that white-foam fever

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- I jumped to my feet on the big yellow foam board and

felt my stomach lurch in a rush of excitement as I took it down the line,

a dozen bobbing, cheering heads darting frantically out of the way.

Last week, I joined a surf camp sponsored by the city of Newport

Beach. It was a crash course in wave riding. Children who had never in

their lives surfed were shredding it up in a week’s time.

While I had started on the first day of surf camp as a strange adult

in their midst, I had quickly become a comrade -- just a bigger kid

trying as desperately as they were to catch and ride a wave.

That first day, when all we did was paddle around in the bay, was also

the first and last time my ability was superior to theirs.

By day two, when we first trudged into the ocean north of the Newport

Beach pier, known to locals as Blackie’s, I would have given anything to

have been a fearless youth.

I took one look at the three-foot face of a wave and said maybe this

wasn’t the place for me.

The instructor, Scott Morlan, glanced over at me and howled with

laughter, saying I had the biggest eyes he’d ever seen.

Meanwhile, 11-year-old Caroline Campbell had already caught her first

wave.

Well, if 8- to 11-year-olds could do this, by God, so could I.

And this was the wildest group of children imaginable.

First there was the “Lesson Crew” from Irvine. This was a gaggle of

girls -- friends and siblings -- who travel in a pack and take every

imaginable kind of lesson together. There was also another smaller group

of girls, who were impossible to differentiate from the Lesson Crew once

the chatter and frantic discussions began about who should have been

voted off the island on “Survivor.”

There were also a couple sets of brothers and sisters, including the

Buchanan brothers. The younger one, Max, had tried to surf on his body

board, he told me, and actually managed to stand on the thing.

For the first couple of days, Scott and his helpers, Tim and Dave,

would pull everyone into waves, making sure everyone could catch one and

pop up.

It also kept the girls in the action, who would otherwise just lay on

their boards chatting a mile a minute.

Now from day one, Morlan stressed how a surfer should never trust the

leash, the tether that attaches to the board and a surfer’s leg -- or

anyone else’s. So no one had a leash.

While the idea was to teach everyone to hold onto their boards, the

result was children frantically chasing down a rainbow of colored foam

boards.

Day three -- we were all supposed to be working on our turns. This

took us from successfully riding a wave toward shore, back to falling off

as we tried to turn the foam monsters.

Although I was totally obsessed with catching my own waves, I did

manage to take note of how great these guys were doing. It was both

impressive and hysterical at the same time.

There were these two tiny red-haired twins, Sara and Annie. They each

couldn’t have weighed more than 35 pounds soaking wet. When they caught a

wave it looked like they were standing on a barge.

By days three and four, my little buddies would greet me with

excitement. I realized I was “in” when they were asking me which wetsuit

or rash guard they should wear.

And truth be told, I was happy to see them every day, too. They were

lots of fun and probably the funniest friends I’d had in a long time.

Then on the fourth day everything changed.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I popped up on the yellow

beast, made a left and sped down the line.

I was no longer having fun -- I was hooked. Whatever this was, I

needed it.

Even thinking about that ride right now, I get a jittery rush of

excitement and crave that feeling.

While everyone was having a blast, by watching and talking to my

fellow surfers I could tell that some of them got it and some didn’t.

But the final day was just plain fun for everyone.

We had a series of contests -- most rides, longest rides, style and

length of coffin rides, headstands, riding backward and dancing while

riding.

When, I am proud to say, I won the coffin ride category -- where you

ride the board feet first on your back with your arms crossed over your

chest -- many of my little friends turned on me.

I graciously tried to make it up to them by opting out of the

headstand round.

But as I watched them all tumbling sideways off their boards I

couldn’t resist getting involved. I told 11-year-old Caitlin Chamberlin

to catch the white water, put her head and hands down and I’d pull up her

feet. That earned her a trophy doughnut hole for “best assisted

handstand.”

No job should be this fun.