Coming soon!

Date: June 27, 2004
Time: 1100 -- 1200
Spot(s): Baby Queens
Conditions: Light winds, novice crowd
Swell: Pretty consistent with mostly windswell
Surf: 1' Haw'n

Words: After last month's fun of riding together, Taryn was ready to give surfing another try. I told her that I'm not going out with expectations--just wanted to spend quality time with her and have some fun.

This time, I rented a board, a soft-top epoxy 10'6" (kama'aina rate from the beach boys). The extra planning (and my paddling gloves) got us into the waves early and often. Taryn was very tentative at first, but soon realized that standing up on a moving board wasn't so bad.

We caught a couple with me lying down in back, steering and controlling the speed and pitch of the board. We even got a couple where we were standing up together. Interestingly my daughter seems to be a goofyfooter (right foot forward).

Earlier I had talked story with this watercamera guy named Heirama who was shooting tourist surfing and asked him to get a couple shots of us. When we finished up, and after playing for an hour in the shorebreak, we went over to the the Pacific Island Photography storefront to check out the photos and bought a few. They were cool enough to give us all the photos.

The kicker for me was when we got back home. Taryn went on to describe the surfing sensation to my wife, saying that it felt like she was flying. You could just hear the stoke in her words as we vowed to keep going and keep improving. She even tentatively agreed to doing tandem lifts sometime in the future. I can't wait.

Aloha from Paradise,

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