Surf Safety Tip #1:  Don’t dive off your board; fall backward instead.

I’ve heard this again and again – diving off your board when you don’t know how deep it is can be dangerous, so don’t do it.  But I just can’t seem to break that habit.

Every time I miss a wave but pop up anyway (another weird pattern I’ve developed), I find it natural to dive off.  I don’t know what it is.  Maybe it’s from summers on the swim team when I had to practice diving off the block again, and again, and again…I just can’t seem to stop.

This came to a head today when we went out after work to try our new waterproof video camera.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to film because I was having a difficult time catching waves; they just kept rolling up under me and I was left standing on my board.  After a while, this really started to agitate me and Mad Mo does not make for good pictures or video, so Ted put the camera away and grabbed his board.

To make matters worse, the rip was preventing me from holding my position in the lineup.  You see, the way a wave breaks has almost everything to do with the bottom, and bottoms are varied because of sand bars, trenches, etc.  Therefore, certain areas of the beach are better for surfing than others so surfers “line up” at those spots to catch the waves.   But because rips or heavy winds are frequently in play, you have to work at constantly paddling against them so you don’t get taken down the beach.

In addition to the extra energy required to constantly paddle over, you have to be continually aware of where you are on the lineup.  If you’re just looking out at the waves, you don’t realize you’ve been drifting until you’re eight beach houses over.  At this point it can be too late to paddle back – especially if the rip is stromg and your paddle is weak – you have to go back in and walk over to the correct spot.

I’m particularly prone to this distraction and Ted had to keep telling me to paddle over.  Finally at one point this afternoon he said with a notably forceful tone, “Maureen.  The lineup is here,” as he emphatically pointed to where he was sitting.  This of course struck a cord with me (I mean, what does it matter if I’m not catching as many waves because I’m not right on the lineup?).  So I did what any good 6-year-old would do and paddled over toward him, beyond him, and then beyond that, until I was a healthy 50 yards down the beach in the other direction.

That’ll show him…I guess.

My frustration grew as I continued having trouble getting in front of the waves and I’m pretty sure my attitude showed.  After missing the next wave, and popping up anyway, it happened.

I dove off my board and because of my triumphant paddle over to the other side of the lineup, I was now, unwittingly, over a sandbar.  So when I dove in, I must have just cleared the bottom with my arms, head, and chest, but as I began to arch back up to the surface, I crashed the bottom of my rib cage into the sandbar.

This sent a shrill of pain through my body – I guess I came down with a lot of speed – and my eyes were watering up by the time I resurfaced.

I didn’t really know what to do.  Ted and I were, ugh…taking a breaking from talking to each other, and there were tourists on the beach probably wondering why I kept popping up on a non‑moving board only to dive off of it.  So I gingerly got back on my board and slowly paddled back out.

Each stroke caused a tinge of pain and I couldn’t take a full breath.  I sat on my board for a while pretending to be looking for waves when I was really just trying to fight the tears that were desperately wanting to break out in full stream.

“Oh please no,” I thought, I can’t be a bad surfer and a crying one!

Ted, whose board is a foot longer and that much harder to get in front of waves, wasn’t having much luck either, so he put his board up and came back out to get some video footage.   I pretended not to know he was approaching me so I could continue “looking for waves” as I tried to get myself together.  He must have been able to tell that I was caging the CryBear because he immediately asked what was wrong.

“I cracked a rib on the sandbar,” I blurted out.  Concern overtook his face and he said, “Ok, let’s go home; we can start with icing it.”  When I turned down his offer, he thought one of two things: a) she’s really tough and utterly dedicated to the sport, or b) she didn’t crack a rib.

Once he surmised it was the latter, he kindly but patronizingly asked me, “What did we learn about diving off the board?”

He must have snapped this just after he asked that question because this is not a happy face: