I guess this post is about surfing

I've been behind on putting anything up here, but I want to have at least one post per year as long as I can, so here's this year's post. I didn't even realize it but apparently I've started multiple posts in the last year but never got around to finishing & publishing them. If I do anything else worth noting, I'll post on that too. I actually haven't been hiking as much because I switched over to surfing more often and have been making it a point to get in the water at least 2 times each week nowadays.

I learned how to surf around my sophomore year in undergrad from my friend but never really got anywhere with surfing around that time because I wasn't so good in the water. My friend who taught me is a much better waterman than I am, and I couldn't really keep up, so I preferred hiking and other land-based activities at the time. I had always considered myself more of a land person, but I think I've been getting to a balance point between land & ocean.

It was only from about last year that I got back into surfing, and it was because of some new friends I met on a hike. I ended up taking one of those new friends surfing, which not only got me back in the water but allowed me to improve my surfing too because I was surfing with someone who was pretty much starting from scratch. This also tested my surfing knowledge because I asked my surfer friend to help teach, but I also helped with the teaching.

For the longest time, my surfer friend and I only rode longboard, and I thought I would only ride longboard because shortboard seemed to challenging. But my friend decided to move to shortboard and let me try out one of the shortboards that he had picked up. His shortboard was a little too big for me, so I eventually ended up picking up my own shortboard. I haven't even been riding shortboard for a year yet but am slowly starting to get the hang of it.

My friend also goes to a different surf spot from when we rode longboard, and this new spot has more shortboarders than longboarders or SUPers. The only thing is that I've been getting more cuts on my feet because I tend to wipeout more, and the water is shallower and rockier than other spots we've surfed at. Generally, though, the waves are good and the crowd is nice.

There may be a shift to more surf themed posts from here on, but I don't video when I surf, so there wouldn't be any kinds of pictures or video from our surf sessions. Maybe I'll go on a hike sometime to make sure I still know how to use my DSLR.