So THAT'S what salt water tastes like!

Yeah so I went to Surf Camp Australia this week. It was quite a lot of work, but also (thankfully), a lot of fun as well! This was a strange thing for me to do because I am not a big fan of water in general, I don't go swimming unless I am forced by friends. I signed up for the camp after one of the head coaches gave a talk about it and told us it was for everyone and after showing some pictures of the place and explaining how it works. Also, it only cost me about $425 Canadian, so since meals are included and I haven't had anything decent to eat for a while, why not?

So I woke up on Monday October 6 really early to walk to the hostel for the bus to pick us up. Everytime a nice Greyhound bus passed us by I was wondering what sort of a bus would take us there... eventually I found out, it was a small Toyota bus that seats about 25 people. It was obvious that it was our bus because it had 'Surf Camp Australia' written on it.

We drove through some hilly countryside for about 2 hours south of Sydney to get to the beach. Pretty nice scenery all around. There were a lot of Germans at the camp, some Swedes, some Danes, some Dutchies as well. Canadians, Americans, and UK folk were in a small minority. And there was one French and one Italian guy. So a pretty good mix of people, but pretty much all white people. One hour after we arrived we got into our wetsuits and went to the beach to start our first lesson! The first thing we learned was where we need to position ourselves on the board, and how to push up on it. The standing didn't come until the second lesson.

I though it would be similar to snowboafding but the only thing that's similar is the stance. Front foot at 45 degrees, back foot at 90 degrees. Keep your body straight. Of course since I'm a weak-sauce computer nerd I stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the more built peers, but I got over it after I saw them wipe out as much as me.

Over the days I got better and better and my coach even told me he was happy to see me get better. I could probably do this if I could somehow live close enough to a beach and fit it into my schedule. It really is a good feeling when you 'get it', and get a good ride out to the beach. Of course we didn't do anything near to what they have in their posters, riding through tunnel/barrel waves. That is for the professionals. But the important thing is I had fun and met a bunch of people.

Now reality will set in and I'll have to find a job! Or else I will not have as much fun. There are still a bunch of things I want to do like some cruises, skydiving, and some outback adventures. I have an interview 4 hours from now and I'm pretty stoked for it.

If you want to see pictures, go to www.nowak-designs.com/fotos, or check my facebook page.

Thanks again for reading, hope to hear from you soon!

_Jori