Today I had my first ever surfing lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was not entirely successful. I was actually reasonably good at getting to my feet and staying balanced; the difficulty was paddling out to catch the waves. This was extremely tiring and my sore arm soon objected so I took a break after about 4 or 5 goes. Then decided to go back in again but my arms were already weak and as I waded into the sea a wave pushed the surfboard into my face, leaving me stunned for a few minutes. It missed my eye by a couple of milimetres and I now have an interesting bruise, not a proper black eye, but it looks like heavily smudged kajal. That was the end of my surfing for the day, though we will certainly be back.
The instructor was a young Spanish man who’d lived here on the beach since early childhood and had grown up surfing. He was very sweet and earnest, and full of joy in the sea, which I suppose is true of most surfers.
There were some remarkably adept surfers out on Playa Cocles where we had our lesson. Some scrawny little boys, like spiders on their surfboards, others swinging left wildy left and right, and one fellow who did a handstand on his surfboard.
The Gentleman Friend continued for the full two hours and after being virtually unable to stay on his feet, became quite adept at it. Who would have thought he, or I, might aspire to be surfer dudes?
Before surfing we went to a chocolate shop and tried some of the locally grown chocolates. Some interesting ones, particularly a handcrafted grainy traditional style one, but they all used a rather sour smelling milk, for some reason. The chocolate shop owner was a very nice French Canadian who had upped and left his life in Montreal and settled here, just down the road from where we are staying on Playa Negra.