- Get out far enough to catch waves before they break into white frothy things;
- Pick a good wave and align yourself to catch it;
- Catch the wave, hop onto your board and ride all the way to the shore.
And now a more detailed introduction:
- To get out to where the waves aren't broken, you have to wade through the area where the waves are broken. Some of these waves are intent on killing you. After wading out to a bit above knee-depth, it's futile to try and keep your footing when the big waves come. The next step is to paddle far out, stomach on board, without getting swept away by the waves. I discovered (through trial and error) that a tactic is to point the surfboard directly into the center of the broken wave (that is, the tip of the surfboard is submerged) and lift my body above the wave to avoid the worst of the froth. The challenges:
- Point the surfboard a bit too far up and it the wave gives very irritating backwards propulsion.
- Point the surfboard a little bit higher up and the wave will flip the surfer and surfboard over, vertically: the most gentle result in this horrible situation is that the surfer ends up underneath the board, but more often than not surfer and board fly off in opposite directions, and the rope between the two gets tangled in the surfer's legs, and water is inhaled, and then the next wave comes and neither the surfer nor the board are prepared and it just doesn't look good for anybody.
- Even worse, point the surfboard a little too far down into the wave and it goes down, dragging the surfer down, and then comes up, dragging the surfer absolutely anywhere. Very bad.
- Out a few hundred feet, it's surprisingly calm. Other (I assume better) surfers actually sit up on their boards, straddling them, and wait. At one such time (I felt it was quite an accomplishment to get this far) I asked a neighboring surfer how to get to step 3. And all of a sudden, as he was giving some pointers, a wooly mammoth disguised as a wave charged at me. I applied my board-in-the-wave technique and it worked, except it spun me around like a top. I was then facing sideways and the mammoth's mate charged in hot pursuit. My only hope was to yell,
Bye!
and try to catch it. The moral of the story: Step 2 is harder than it seems. - It's very hard to catch the wave right before it breaks. And when you do, you have to jump onto your surfboard. And then you have to stay on your surfboard. I only managed to get up after the waves broke (leading to slower, less spectacular surfing), and I learned that I didn't find staying up all that tricky compared to all the rest.
My most valuable lesson: the ocean is your friend. Be one with the ocean. If it doesn't like you, it will snap you like a twig. Be friendly, get to know it, and it might let you live. Maybe you can even talk to it. (I didn't try this, but it might help.)
Another good lesson: begin with smaller waves. The surfers I talked to said these waves were far too big for beginners. (It was also cold and windy. I didn't mind the cold water, but I minded the cold wind.)
Oh, and another handy lesson: don't die. Try to make that your mantra. I almost ignored it a couple of times as waves twice my height decided to play with me. It's worth remembering.
And I was reminded once again that my sunscreen did not work. Volleyball was so painful I couldn't help myself from screaming after some bumps. On the bright side (heh, all my sides are bright red now), at least my tan is now even.