Longboards ROCK!!!

7/5- video below shows better waves, twice as big as they have been. Actual shoulders on the waves.

Look at how tiny the waves are! It’s unbelievable but true that if you have a longboard, you can turn sow’s ears into silk purses.

Im stiff and sore from surfing two days on the smallest waves I’ve ever surfed on. Most “real men” brag about the fish that got away or the size of the bear they killed with their bare hands, but here I am bragging about the opposite kind of thing.

All the the muscles that are used to paddle feel like they need a massage (never had one and don’t want one), but my son and I are going out now with a waning tide on 2-3’ waves with four to five seconds- the most laughable and ridiculous scenario imaginable.

We aren’t the only ones out there, and most of the population here at Higgins beach romp and sunbathe and sleep on the beach, something we cannot stand doing.

This is town has a totally ASSININE law prohibiting surfing from 11-5pm anywhere on the beach, so we take our lake canoe and surf with that instead. It’s really fun. We take every wave we can with the kid in front and me in back. Initially he tries to catch the wave but inevitably he tries to tip it over while I try to keep it from tipping. The wave also tries to turn the canoe parallel with the wave then roll it over so it’s a fun battle.

Yesterday the “fun nazi” policeman appeared at the beach to tell us to stop so we just paddled away over to the mansions a couple of miles away and were in awe of the clarity of the water, the huge fish jumping out of the water, the birds divebombing into the water in search of a snack. If that cop wanted to handcuff us for having fun he was going to have to get wet.

This is a very strange but awesome town. Rules/laws/attitudes/natural beauty/fun. At Higgins Beach, it’s like the town in Angela Langburie’s “Murder She Wrote” which took place on the coast in Washington State.

I was changing into my wetsuit in the parking lot of the inn where we have stayed for six years and the owner of the inn drove by and yelled “NICE ASS” at me. Not one person has ever said that to me before. I looked up, saw it was Bob, waved, laughed, and decided that despite all the stupid laws here I would return every year for the Fourth of July week until we die!

My son kept griping about the shitty waves. He was right. But I saw things differently, a view that must be available only to people who have spun around the earth more than he has. The sun, warmer than usual water, extremely friendly beautiful woman that I was chatting with (and who I swapped boards with for a while). Surfing is only half of surfing.