Anal Annie
at least I KNOW I'm a kook...I just can't help it
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2006
This morning we were scheduled to have our surf lessons on the North Shore!! Knowing that its about an hours drive to get there I had scheduled them for 11:00 so we wouldnt have to get up again toooo early if we didnt want to. No alarms!! We were up, eating our breakfast & getting dressed in our bathing suits and were almost ready to leave when I got a call from our contact at the surf lesson place (Uncle Bryans Sunset Surrat Surf Academy). They had been out surveying their normal lesson spot and she said that due to the continued higher than normal surf from hurricane Julio they were going to move our lesson to what she called their winter spot which was more protected and would have less large swells. I was glad that at least they HAD an alternate spot to go to and they didnt have to cancel. She gave me the new directions and off we went to pick up towels from the pool and hit the road.
I must say, Im 53 now so taking my first surf lesson at this age was a bit of a stretch. But this was my 5th trip to Hawaii and the first time getting out of Waikiki so I wanted to try it at least once. Im not a regular exerciser but I figured I had started learning to snow ski at age 45 surely I could at least give this a try at least when I fell it should be a softer landing, right?! I had no doubts but that DH & DS (especially DS) would get along great with it. The new location was sort of in a little park-like area in Haleiwa. I say park because there was a small playground area, a parking lot and sort of a public bathroom. OK, it WAS a public bathroom but it was disgusting and probably never, ever maintained by anybody for the last 5 years. Yes, I went because it was an hour drive and my morning cup of Kona coffee was calling my name. Probably not the first or last time Ill ever have to drip dry or pray that cooties dont know how to jump. But so yeah, there was a pretty big ewww factor here. (Probably TMI huh?!)
OK, so our contact had said not to leave anything in the car, bring it over to their tent so we brought our backpack with my good camera and our beach bag with our wallets, towels & sunscreen and locked it to their tent leg with our cable lock. They passed out rash guards for each of us. We had booked a semi-private lesson for just the 3 of us. When I had emailed them prior to booking they had said they could offer this deal at $100 pp which was like $20 more pp than just booking a regular group lesson. I thought with my limited abilities and Jareds swimming strength that wed probably get a lot more out of the semi-private lesson and that it would be worthwhile. I think that I was right and that this was a good move. We were glad we booked it like this. There were about 3 surf companies there in this spot when we were there and there was one with a pretty large group. One instructor can really only handle 2 surfers at a time the others in the group have to sit on their boards off to the side, out of the way and wait for their turns. We got a lot more rides in with just the 3 of us. The water where we were going to surf was a little dark & dingy looking. Not the PRETTIEST place to go. It looked fine further out but as it got closer to shore it was murky right where the waves were breaking. Not sure why. DH didnt think the waves looked very big but they were actually ALL ANY OF US NEEDED!! The were plenty big. If they wouldve been much bigger it wouldve been harder to get up.
Our instructor was Greg he led us thru some rough path over to a small beach area where the surf boards were waiting for us. They had told us to leave our RX glasses behind at the tent (DS was not wearing his contacts either) so it was sort of a treacherous walk for the 2 of us to where we had to go. There were small amounts of trash, rocks, sticks and even broken glass along the way. I was a little nervous about stepping on something and wished we had kept our flip flops on. When we got to the surf boards Greg proceeded to give us some instructions on land about where we should lay on the boards (where our chests should be and where our arms should hit when outstretched etc) and then how to get up on the board. There was a specific process. Push & raise up with your arms outstretched. Pull your knees up under you. Squat. Pivot. Stand, knees bent, arms out. Well, let me tell you. The pivot part was not happening for this old lady!! LOL. DH & DS were both limber enough but there was just no way I could pivot while IN a squat position. (Greg eventually modified this for me to eliminate the pivoting.)
Greg was "towing" DS out of the way of the other surfers
It was a 2 hour lesson and after getting out there for my first run I wondered if I would be able to last the whole time. Like they said when we started, its 90% paddling. DS with his competitive swimming background had NO problems paddling out there and quickly. It was zero effort for him. I on the other hand would paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. LOL. DH got along pretty good at first but after awhile also slowed down on the paddling part. Guess what? The further you ride. The further you have to paddle to get back!! LOL. You also need to sort of go OVER, out of the other surfers way first THEN paddle back out (there were other surf companies there plus another instructor with a group from our company so you had to move out of the way). DS and DH caught on real quick and eventually got their movements to flow from one right to the next. Me. Not so much. I was too slow and couldnt get the timing down so that by the time I was starting to stand up the wave was breaking and washing me off. Of course there are good points and bad points to wearing that leash around your ankle that tethers you to the surf board. On the good side you never lose the board and its close by when you need to climb back on. On the bad side the wave takes the empty board and it literally drags you behind it. Even with the rash guard I somehow managed to scrape up my elbows and I swallowed so much water. OH and the tops of my big toes were rubbed raw from laying on the board. Then there was this bruising affect on my rib cage from the way you sort of push up when you paddle. I ALMOST got up but never really quite did it for more than like ½ a second. I asked to quit at 90 minutes. Well, actually I kinda wanted to stop at an hour but Greg wouldnt let me give up that quickly. I figured if I got out early tho he could concentrate on the 2 of them and they could get even more rides in. Plus I hoped to get a few pictures.
This is Greg and DH (in the yellow rash guards). Greg is watching for a good wave to send DH off into
Greg giving DH a push into the wave at the right moment
And he's up!!
It took me a few minutes to get back over to the tent. Then when our contact there pointed out the fresh water shower near the bathroom so I wanted to ditch the rash guard and rinse off before going back I didnt put my flip flops on because my feet were sandy. Well, so the sidewalk was HOT so I walked in the grass which turned out to be full of these little vine-like briars!! Still didnt have my glasses on so I couldnt see how to get out of them but all I knew was I had like a hundred thorns in the bottoms of my feet!! I started yelling and some man came running over to help me navigate away from them. But so then my only option was the HOT sidewalk. This whole debacle slowed me down a lot in getting back over to where they were surfing to get some pictures because I had to pull out the thorns. DOH!! They were almost done with the lesson so I got very few pics. I was really bummed about that.
DS got on really good with it
DH & DS coming back after the lesson was over (you can sort of see DH's stomach was red & bruised from rubbing on the board, even with the rash guard)
Our lesson finished around 1:00 and after the guys rinsed off etc. it was easily 1:15 or so. So after the lesson we took off looking for shrimp trucks for lunch!! We were starved by now! There were a lot of them and we passed Matsumotos Shave Ice too there was a HUGE line going all the way down the street there. We finally spied Giovannis Shrimp Truck and decided to stop there. DH and I both had the garlic shrimp (and BOY oh BOY was it loaded with garlic)!! HOLY BAT CAVE!! Each plate mustve had a whole bulb of buttery garlic on it!! It was a good deal too at only like $14!! DS got the garlic hot dogs which were also coated in garlic and they were like foot long ones too. Im sure we all stunk to high heaven!! We decided to skip the line at Matsumotos and just get some shave ice at one of the trucks parked near Giovannis truck. That would save a lot of time. We actually got something that was like a blend of shave ice and ice cream. It was a really strange texture but interesting. It was flaky and sort of dissolved in your mouth.
See all that brown stuff sprinkled over the rice & lemon? THAT'S ALL GARLIC!!
There was a McDonalds across the street from the shrimp trucks that I wanted to hit to go to the bathroom so we went over there. Of course the bathroom was locked so you had to BUY something to use it. I was perfectly OK with that. I just desperately wanted a normal and somewhat clean bathroom so we bought sodas.
After we left Haleiwa we decided to continue driving to find Waimea Falls and Turtle Bay. It was starting to get late sort of (mustve been at least 3:00-3:30 or so) and I didnt realize that there was a $15 admission fee to get into Waimea Falls. So once we found that out we decided to skip it and keep driving up to Turtle Bay. We just didnt have enough time left for it to be worth the $45 admission but I could tell it wouldve been really pretty. It just wouldve been an in & out take a few pics kind of thing probably. If we would have done our surf lessons earlier, at like 9:00, then wed have had plenty of time. By this time wed also discovered that despite lotioning up that morning we were all terribly sunburned on the backs of our legs!! DH especially so because hes the fair one who doesnt tan. (While in a day or two DS and I tanned DH eventually peeled a little back there WHO PEELS on the backs of their legs?!)
I took these right when we started to go to Waimea Falls (before we found out we'd have to pay)
Sooo we drove on up to Turtle Bay and went down to the beach area there. We parked at the Turtle Bay resort which had parking in their furthest lot for beach parking. Id hoped maybe wed see some turtles but the waves were really big there. Well, not HUGE Hawaii Five-O type waves but they were big enough that we couldnt go out to look for anything and they were definitely a lot bigger than they were where we had our lesson. It wasnt a good spot to snorkel tho. There was a lagoon type area but it didnt really look like people were swimming with turtles or anything. We just sort of stood there for a few minutes & looked around, not knowing what to do next. I kept wishing Id done more research on the North Shore. It was very pretty but I was feeling a little unprepared. And I kept wishing Id have packed our water shoes to bring on the trip but I didnt. Some areas were pretty rocky not good for flip flops OR to go barefoot. The day was flying by!! We finally decided that with it being at least an hour long drive back to Aulani that maybe we should just head back. I hadnt had a chance to catch any sunsets yet so I wanted to get back before it was too late.
Oh, and we also passed by Teds Bakery. I said we should stop to check it out but DH was like WHY?! I had no answer except to say that because everybody stops there. And its supposed to be a good bakery. DH didnt see the point tho with those being my only reasons so we didnt stop. DOH again LeeAnn!! Im sure we missed out on some fabulous goodies thanks to my lack of research!! At least we saw some gorgeous scenery along the way. It was a beautiful day for a beautiful drive.
We got back just in time for me to get showered and go down to catch the sunset for some pics (they dont do daylight savings time in Hawaii so the sun sets an hour earlier there than at home). I left DS & DH to finish showering as I really only had a few minutes before it would set so I decided to go alone. I headed over to the right toward the Marriott. I wasnt sure exactly where the sun would set and didnt know what view I would have from the left side of the lagoon & I thought it looked like a longer walk so I went right. WELL wouldnt ya know there was a big wedding reception going on over on the lawn of the Marriott there was a huge tent set up. Grrrr. So I sort of did a wide right thru the lawn & tried to go as far as I could away from it to get to the shoreline. I just made it before it set but there was a line of clouds moving thru right at the same time so it was sort of a bust. I mean, it was OK but it couldve been better. Guess I will keep trying!!
We decided to go over to the shopping center to get some dinner. Hadnt really decided where. We walked around debating our choices & eventually settled on the Pizza Corner place. I didnt take any pics of it but it was a decent enough pie large for $24. We sat outside and the owner came out & gave us some leftover cinnamon bun things that we took back with us for breakfast.
I must say, Im 53 now so taking my first surf lesson at this age was a bit of a stretch. But this was my 5th trip to Hawaii and the first time getting out of Waikiki so I wanted to try it at least once. Im not a regular exerciser but I figured I had started learning to snow ski at age 45 surely I could at least give this a try at least when I fell it should be a softer landing, right?! I had no doubts but that DH & DS (especially DS) would get along great with it. The new location was sort of in a little park-like area in Haleiwa. I say park because there was a small playground area, a parking lot and sort of a public bathroom. OK, it WAS a public bathroom but it was disgusting and probably never, ever maintained by anybody for the last 5 years. Yes, I went because it was an hour drive and my morning cup of Kona coffee was calling my name. Probably not the first or last time Ill ever have to drip dry or pray that cooties dont know how to jump. But so yeah, there was a pretty big ewww factor here. (Probably TMI huh?!)
OK, so our contact had said not to leave anything in the car, bring it over to their tent so we brought our backpack with my good camera and our beach bag with our wallets, towels & sunscreen and locked it to their tent leg with our cable lock. They passed out rash guards for each of us. We had booked a semi-private lesson for just the 3 of us. When I had emailed them prior to booking they had said they could offer this deal at $100 pp which was like $20 more pp than just booking a regular group lesson. I thought with my limited abilities and Jareds swimming strength that wed probably get a lot more out of the semi-private lesson and that it would be worthwhile. I think that I was right and that this was a good move. We were glad we booked it like this. There were about 3 surf companies there in this spot when we were there and there was one with a pretty large group. One instructor can really only handle 2 surfers at a time the others in the group have to sit on their boards off to the side, out of the way and wait for their turns. We got a lot more rides in with just the 3 of us. The water where we were going to surf was a little dark & dingy looking. Not the PRETTIEST place to go. It looked fine further out but as it got closer to shore it was murky right where the waves were breaking. Not sure why. DH didnt think the waves looked very big but they were actually ALL ANY OF US NEEDED!! The were plenty big. If they wouldve been much bigger it wouldve been harder to get up.
Our instructor was Greg he led us thru some rough path over to a small beach area where the surf boards were waiting for us. They had told us to leave our RX glasses behind at the tent (DS was not wearing his contacts either) so it was sort of a treacherous walk for the 2 of us to where we had to go. There were small amounts of trash, rocks, sticks and even broken glass along the way. I was a little nervous about stepping on something and wished we had kept our flip flops on. When we got to the surf boards Greg proceeded to give us some instructions on land about where we should lay on the boards (where our chests should be and where our arms should hit when outstretched etc) and then how to get up on the board. There was a specific process. Push & raise up with your arms outstretched. Pull your knees up under you. Squat. Pivot. Stand, knees bent, arms out. Well, let me tell you. The pivot part was not happening for this old lady!! LOL. DH & DS were both limber enough but there was just no way I could pivot while IN a squat position. (Greg eventually modified this for me to eliminate the pivoting.)
Greg was "towing" DS out of the way of the other surfers
It was a 2 hour lesson and after getting out there for my first run I wondered if I would be able to last the whole time. Like they said when we started, its 90% paddling. DS with his competitive swimming background had NO problems paddling out there and quickly. It was zero effort for him. I on the other hand would paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. LOL. DH got along pretty good at first but after awhile also slowed down on the paddling part. Guess what? The further you ride. The further you have to paddle to get back!! LOL. You also need to sort of go OVER, out of the other surfers way first THEN paddle back out (there were other surf companies there plus another instructor with a group from our company so you had to move out of the way). DS and DH caught on real quick and eventually got their movements to flow from one right to the next. Me. Not so much. I was too slow and couldnt get the timing down so that by the time I was starting to stand up the wave was breaking and washing me off. Of course there are good points and bad points to wearing that leash around your ankle that tethers you to the surf board. On the good side you never lose the board and its close by when you need to climb back on. On the bad side the wave takes the empty board and it literally drags you behind it. Even with the rash guard I somehow managed to scrape up my elbows and I swallowed so much water. OH and the tops of my big toes were rubbed raw from laying on the board. Then there was this bruising affect on my rib cage from the way you sort of push up when you paddle. I ALMOST got up but never really quite did it for more than like ½ a second. I asked to quit at 90 minutes. Well, actually I kinda wanted to stop at an hour but Greg wouldnt let me give up that quickly. I figured if I got out early tho he could concentrate on the 2 of them and they could get even more rides in. Plus I hoped to get a few pictures.
This is Greg and DH (in the yellow rash guards). Greg is watching for a good wave to send DH off into
Greg giving DH a push into the wave at the right moment
And he's up!!
It took me a few minutes to get back over to the tent. Then when our contact there pointed out the fresh water shower near the bathroom so I wanted to ditch the rash guard and rinse off before going back I didnt put my flip flops on because my feet were sandy. Well, so the sidewalk was HOT so I walked in the grass which turned out to be full of these little vine-like briars!! Still didnt have my glasses on so I couldnt see how to get out of them but all I knew was I had like a hundred thorns in the bottoms of my feet!! I started yelling and some man came running over to help me navigate away from them. But so then my only option was the HOT sidewalk. This whole debacle slowed me down a lot in getting back over to where they were surfing to get some pictures because I had to pull out the thorns. DOH!! They were almost done with the lesson so I got very few pics. I was really bummed about that.
DS got on really good with it
DH & DS coming back after the lesson was over (you can sort of see DH's stomach was red & bruised from rubbing on the board, even with the rash guard)
Our lesson finished around 1:00 and after the guys rinsed off etc. it was easily 1:15 or so. So after the lesson we took off looking for shrimp trucks for lunch!! We were starved by now! There were a lot of them and we passed Matsumotos Shave Ice too there was a HUGE line going all the way down the street there. We finally spied Giovannis Shrimp Truck and decided to stop there. DH and I both had the garlic shrimp (and BOY oh BOY was it loaded with garlic)!! HOLY BAT CAVE!! Each plate mustve had a whole bulb of buttery garlic on it!! It was a good deal too at only like $14!! DS got the garlic hot dogs which were also coated in garlic and they were like foot long ones too. Im sure we all stunk to high heaven!! We decided to skip the line at Matsumotos and just get some shave ice at one of the trucks parked near Giovannis truck. That would save a lot of time. We actually got something that was like a blend of shave ice and ice cream. It was a really strange texture but interesting. It was flaky and sort of dissolved in your mouth.
See all that brown stuff sprinkled over the rice & lemon? THAT'S ALL GARLIC!!
There was a McDonalds across the street from the shrimp trucks that I wanted to hit to go to the bathroom so we went over there. Of course the bathroom was locked so you had to BUY something to use it. I was perfectly OK with that. I just desperately wanted a normal and somewhat clean bathroom so we bought sodas.
After we left Haleiwa we decided to continue driving to find Waimea Falls and Turtle Bay. It was starting to get late sort of (mustve been at least 3:00-3:30 or so) and I didnt realize that there was a $15 admission fee to get into Waimea Falls. So once we found that out we decided to skip it and keep driving up to Turtle Bay. We just didnt have enough time left for it to be worth the $45 admission but I could tell it wouldve been really pretty. It just wouldve been an in & out take a few pics kind of thing probably. If we would have done our surf lessons earlier, at like 9:00, then wed have had plenty of time. By this time wed also discovered that despite lotioning up that morning we were all terribly sunburned on the backs of our legs!! DH especially so because hes the fair one who doesnt tan. (While in a day or two DS and I tanned DH eventually peeled a little back there WHO PEELS on the backs of their legs?!)
I took these right when we started to go to Waimea Falls (before we found out we'd have to pay)
Sooo we drove on up to Turtle Bay and went down to the beach area there. We parked at the Turtle Bay resort which had parking in their furthest lot for beach parking. Id hoped maybe wed see some turtles but the waves were really big there. Well, not HUGE Hawaii Five-O type waves but they were big enough that we couldnt go out to look for anything and they were definitely a lot bigger than they were where we had our lesson. It wasnt a good spot to snorkel tho. There was a lagoon type area but it didnt really look like people were swimming with turtles or anything. We just sort of stood there for a few minutes & looked around, not knowing what to do next. I kept wishing Id done more research on the North Shore. It was very pretty but I was feeling a little unprepared. And I kept wishing Id have packed our water shoes to bring on the trip but I didnt. Some areas were pretty rocky not good for flip flops OR to go barefoot. The day was flying by!! We finally decided that with it being at least an hour long drive back to Aulani that maybe we should just head back. I hadnt had a chance to catch any sunsets yet so I wanted to get back before it was too late.
Oh, and we also passed by Teds Bakery. I said we should stop to check it out but DH was like WHY?! I had no answer except to say that because everybody stops there. And its supposed to be a good bakery. DH didnt see the point tho with those being my only reasons so we didnt stop. DOH again LeeAnn!! Im sure we missed out on some fabulous goodies thanks to my lack of research!! At least we saw some gorgeous scenery along the way. It was a beautiful day for a beautiful drive.
We got back just in time for me to get showered and go down to catch the sunset for some pics (they dont do daylight savings time in Hawaii so the sun sets an hour earlier there than at home). I left DS & DH to finish showering as I really only had a few minutes before it would set so I decided to go alone. I headed over to the right toward the Marriott. I wasnt sure exactly where the sun would set and didnt know what view I would have from the left side of the lagoon & I thought it looked like a longer walk so I went right. WELL wouldnt ya know there was a big wedding reception going on over on the lawn of the Marriott there was a huge tent set up. Grrrr. So I sort of did a wide right thru the lawn & tried to go as far as I could away from it to get to the shoreline. I just made it before it set but there was a line of clouds moving thru right at the same time so it was sort of a bust. I mean, it was OK but it couldve been better. Guess I will keep trying!!
We decided to go over to the shopping center to get some dinner. Hadnt really decided where. We walked around debating our choices & eventually settled on the Pizza Corner place. I didnt take any pics of it but it was a decent enough pie large for $24. We sat outside and the owner came out & gave us some leftover cinnamon bun things that we took back with us for breakfast.