California G-Surfing By Ben Sacks

For those of you who read the title of this blog (which you should have done so give yourself a big pat on the back), then you should know that this blog is about the “radical” surfing experience that the group had during the California/Channel Island National Park expedition. If you didn’t read the title (and you know who you are), then this introduction paragraph is for you.

Before we started “hanging ten”, we met up with Chipper Bro who is an extremely laid back, hilarious, and awesome dude. He was the head instructor in the surfing lesson. The first part was to find out foot positioning. There were two different stances, regular and goofy. Regular is with your left foot forward and goofy is with your right foot forward. Next he told us the proper way to catch the wave. Step one is to paddle hard until your feel the main part of the wave. Then you do a cobra, which is when you place your hands under your chest and push up until your upper body is off the board. Lastly, and this is by far the hardest part, you “pop” or quickly hop up into a crouch and eventually stand up to ride the wave.

When we actually put these tips to the test, it wasn’t so easy. Most of the time, the wave pummeled us, which was still really fun. I got smashed about eighty percent of the time. However, when one of us did stand up, no words could describe the feeling. There were many cheers of triumph and excitement which included “Cowabunga Dude!!”, “Yeeeeaaaahhhh booooyyyy!!”, and my personal favorite, “Rock on freaky bro”.

By the time our two hours of “gnarly wave ripping” were up, we all felt ecstatic, accomplished, and extremely wiped out. It was a very good day and one that we will remember for a while.


Part two of the California/Channel Island National Park expedition will be coming soon to a computer near you.