Welcome back to a Teen’s Teens Surf Saga.
It’s strongly recommended you read A Teen’s Surf Saga A Teen’s Surf Saga – Part 1, A Teen’s Surf Saga Part 2 San Diego Beach Lottery, A TEEN’S SURF SAGA HKSS – An Overachiever’s Story (Part 3), and A TEEN’S SURF SAGA This is Part 4 first.
Our Boat Surfing Trip Stories
So glad to see ya again. Be sure to read Part 5 and Part 6. This is Part 7. Which is the last part to this Boat Surfing Trip. Because if you do, I guarantee you’ll enjoy the last part of this Boat Surfing Trip even more.
Kaila 😊
Boat Surfing Trip
The Good, The Bad, + The Ugly
There are no good options. “No, no, no,” I’m thinking.
The breaking wave slams Waian.
All I see is whitewater. I’m thinking the worst.
I don’t see her. I’m paddling furiously toward the rocks.
“Stop,” I hear one of our friends yell. He’s safely in the paddling channel. He’s pointing to the next wave in the set. It’s still breaking. He doesn’t want both of us to be nailed against the rocks. I stop paddeling.
I come up after the wave breaks. I’m looking. Trying not to panic. Where is she?
The next wave breaks. I get pushed back. Now I’m past the rocks, closer to the beach.
I see Waian’s board. It’s only 20 feet away. I grab my board and push myself on it.
I start paddeling toward Waian’s board. I’m practically looking for Waian.
Waian pops up.
Miracle.
She looks fine.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“I’m fine,” she answers casually.
I don’t know if I want to scream at her or hug her. “Come on, Waian, here’s your board,” As I push it to her.
I make sure she gets on her board, as I start paddling over to the channel, around the rocks. I look over my shoulder to make sure she’s behind me. She looks all right.
I’m thinking, “OMG. We just dodged a bullet. No more like a freight train.” “How did she not get nailed by the rocks?” I’m wondering.
Once we’re in the channel and safe, I slow down, so she can catch up to me.
As she’s getting even with me, I look down. Her leg is covered in blood. Uh-Oh.
“Waian, you need to paddle to the boat, you’re leg is bleeding,” I say in the most calm soothing voice. I’m trying not to get her excited.
Calm. Cool. Cucumber.
She looks behind her, as she’s paddling. I can tell she’s surprised. “It’s not bad,” she says. Waian sits up on her board, puts her leg in the water. Washes off the blood.
She starts paddeling again. “See, it’s fine.”
All the blood is gone. I need a closer look to see how deep the cuts are on her calf. But she won’t stop paddeling to let me.
“Waian, stop paddeling a second so I get a good look at it.” I tell her.
She ignores me, keeps paddling.
“Waian!” I say trying not to get too excited.
“But it doesn’t even hurt,” she says, paddling faster.
As we’re paddeling back out, I can see her leg is covered in blood again. “Waian, look,” I say.
She quickly stops, puts her leg back in the water. Then lays on her board again paddling. “See, all good.” She nods to her leg. The blood is washed off.
Tough girl. She wants to keep surfing.
She doesn’t seem to get it. I don’t blame her. But…
They say Great White’s can smell blood miles away. When you’re bleeding, you probably want to get out of the ocean. Pronto. Especially when it’s your little sister’s blood.
But… it’s going off. The tide’s dropping by the minute. It’s getting better every wave. You’d want to keep surfing too. I get it.
I don’t want to alarm her. But, I know every Great White within a 10 mile radius, is headed our way. They smell breakfast. Yum.
Might as well put up a sign. “Great White Shark Breakfast Special.” I don’t think so.
I don’t want to alarm her. She’s only 9 or so. She’s a couple months from her 10thbirthday. It would be better if she was there to blow out the candles. Just saying.
It’s the little things. Right? Only this ain’t quite so little.
We reach the line-up.
Everyone is telling her, she needs to go back to the boat. Clean it up. Everyone agrees it’s only a lot of scrapes. Not deep. No stitches needed it just keeps bleeding.
“Just one more wave,” Waian pleads.
“Nope. We’re going back to the boat right now,” Dad says. “We don’t want to attract sharks.”
Finally. Someone says the “S” word outloud.
Now, that gets Waian’s attention. Dejectedly starts paddling back to the boat. She’s got her tail between herlegs. Not a happy camper.
I’m keeping a leary eye on her. Hoping she doesn’t get hit on the long paddle back to the boat.
As she climbs into the boat, I get back to the business at hand. Surfing. Uncrowded. Perfection.
Sitting on the boat, watching your big sister surf perfect uncrowded waves sucks. But so does getting hit by a Great White.
Finally, I’m surfed out. I paddle back to the boat. Waian’s gotat least 10 bandaids all over the back of her leg. Not good. But at least it looks like the bleeding has stopped.
“How you doing,” I ask her, after I climb onto the boat.
“It doesn’t really hurt. I could’ve kept surfing… but…”
While we’re riding back to the marina, Dad and I are looking at each other nervously. What are we going to tell Mom?
I figure I have to take charge. Show some leadership. I pull Waian to the back of the boat so we can talk.
Confidentially. I break out with some donuts. Donuts are always a good thing. We’re both hungry.
“We need a plan,” I start one.
“A plan?” she answers, hesitantly. She doesn’t get it.
So I start at the top “If Mom finds out you cut your leg on the rocks, she’s not going to let us surf there anymore.” Waian starts nodding her head. “That wouldn’t be good, would it?” I ask her.
I keep going. “Okay Waian, you need to tell Mom you scraped your leg jumping off the boat. On the swim step.” Yeah that’s right, a plan is starting to come together. “You slipped and fell. It was the boat’s swim step.” “Okay?” I look at her, with the you can do it look.
“You can’t tell her you hit the rocks,” I explain again. “Mom will flip out. We don’t want that, do we?”
She looks at me, still not completely sold on all of this. “Okay, I guess.”
Let’s practice, I’ll be Mom. “Waian how did you hurt your leg?” “I slipped on the swim step,” she says.
Not perfect. But we can work on it. We practice a few more times.
Fast Forward. Just before we get home, we practice a few more times. She’s got it. We’re good.
Hurricane Force Winds at Home
We get home. I wish we had some sweat pants for her to put on. But: it’s 80+ out. So Waian’s wearing shorts.
I walk in first, “Hey, Mom.”
Not good.
“How was it?” Mom asks.
“It was okay.” I answer, trying to be all cool. I’ve got this. Stay in the moment.
Waian doesn’t get two feet into thehouse before Mom rushes over, looks at her leg, “What happened Waian?” Dang, it’s that Mom voice.
The moment of truth. I’m still trying to look all disinterested. Be cool.
Waian freezes. Like a deer in the headlights. She opens her mouth, nothing comes out. She’s been fine this entire time. Not now. She looks at me, with pleading eyes. Tears start welling up.
“I… I… I,“she stammers. Not getting past “I”.
“Waian, tell me what happened?” Mom asks. Somewhere between a soothing voice and an accusation. Not good.
I put my head down, trying to sneak up the stairs.
“Kaila, where do you think you’re going?” Mom asks.
“The bathroom?” As I sheepishly look at Waian. I give her a semi-hand roll, to encourage her.
“I didn’t get cut on the rocks Mom, I slipped on the swim step” Waian blurts out.
My palm goes to my forehead. Waian sees my look of doom and gloom. She rushes over to Mom, crying, “I’m sorry.” Sobbing now. She’s hugging Waian.
Didn’t take her more than a few minutes to unravel our ball of yarn.
The best laid plans.
Things went from bad to worse: Insinuations, recriminations, accusations and at least another half-dozen words that end in “…ations.”
Not good. At all.
It got frosty. Fast. I fell on the sword. I told Mom it was my idea to surf there. All my fault. Good news is that Waian was ripping fast hollow waves. “You would have been proud,” I told her. I’m not sure it helped. But Waian felt better.
It’s hard to be upset with Waian. She’s only 9. But… Still…
When you have beans, you don’t want spilled… It’s better not to give them to Waian. But… It’s hard to blame a 9 year old.
She’s a good kid.
Adventure Surf Saga Storms
Like I said, it’s not really an adventure, until something goes wrong. Right?
I could have told you about a bunch of times when we surfed great waves. Everything went well.
But where’s the fun in that?
Pretty sure, Waian’s not entirely thrilled with this story. Especially going “first” for “surfing” and “saga” in our “A Teen’s Surf Saga” series.
My Response: Waian, if you wanted to tell a story for “A Teen Surf Saga,” you could’ve. Since I’m telling it. I get to pick the story and the order.
It’s called “creative control” 😊
I’d like to tell you that “I don’t have my share of misadventures, screw-ups, misfortunes… but as I said, that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Not even close.
You’ll see.
Thanks for tuning in.
See ya soon.
P.S. Like I said. Everything in this surf saga is true. Except I didn’ttell you location or the name of the surf spots.
P.P.S. If you like our blog posts and/or “A Teen’s Surf Saga” series, please tell other people about it.
P.P.P.S. Full disclosure: Waian’s much better now with this whole bean thing. She doesn’t spill ‘em. Go girl.
Thanks 😊 Be sure to check back for the next one!!