Real Surfers

I'm in Hawaii for Tim Lin's wedding and yesterday we went surfing with a bunch of guys and chilled at the beach it was pretty sweet.

I've never been surfing before so just before I went out I was asking some guys for pointers. As they were distributing boards, Tim gave me his "advanced" board and said good luck with a little laugh. This made me a little nervous, but I decided to give it my best shot.

As we started out I was doing the standard paddle, just like they taught me, which is where you use your arms while lying on the board, but my arms got really tired. I decided to use my legs to kick and rest my arms for a while. I realized that the only real effective way to kick with the board is to get off. So here I am going through the ocean using horrible technique (like I care, I just want to catch up to my friends) when I see this legit surfer dude paddling by and as he sees me he slows down to probably try and figure out what i'm doing. Here's how our conversation went:

Surfer dude (SD): Hey
Me: Hello (my mistake, surfers never say 'hello')
SD: How many times have you been out? (He cuts right to the point. Surfers must be direct)
Me: Oh, this is my first time. :) (I type the smiley face because I smiled at him)
SD: Whose board is that? (He asks hoping that I'm not some rich kid who bought an expensive advanced board before my first time)
Me: Oh it's my friend's who is back on shore.
SD: Ah... He gave you a short board, eh?
Me: Ya, a little bit.
SD: Ha ha (At which point he gave me a weird look and then he paddled away really quickly, while exerting little effort)

Once I got out to where the other guys were I kept flashing the 'hang loose' hand signal and saying "we're real surfers!" I never could catch any waves, but my biggest accomplishment was not falling off the board while I was heading back in. :)

All in all it was a great trip and now I consider myself a real surfer.