The ocean and love.
It's hard to believe that Boricua and I have been married for a WHOLE YEAR. But we have! And to celebrate, we took half of the week off on the west side of the island. It works out nicely because he's graduating from the University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez tomorrow. He will officially be a mechanical engineer. :)
To listen to as you scroll, if you please_ Let's Go Surfing | The Drums
We left our apartment when there still wasn't any light yesterday and drove the blissful 2 hours or so to go to a surfing lesson in Rincón - it was a surprise from Boricua! He decided he would rather take photos than take a lesson, so take photos he did! We are debuting our new camera - and hoping we can learn how to use it to its maximum potential!
After getting some on-land training, our instructors led us out into the water, through a little section where the waves don't break as hard. They made us swear to not step on the bottom, because there are sea urchins that basically give you little venomous splinters, so as soon as I could I hopped onto the board and paddled hard to get out past the break.
We practiced the "pop-up" before we got out into the water, and I was happy to learn that the stance on a surfboard is similar to snowboarding. It felt natural to ride goofy, and getting up on the board felt a bit like the yoga I attempted last year. Of course, that was all on land.
Once it was my turn, I went over to one of the instructors and he let me know when it was time to start paddling. As soon as he did, I paddled my heart out until I heard "up!" at which point I was supposed to do a smooth pop-up as I rode down the wave. On my first few tries, I ended up knee-boarding! I was really excited haha. It was like, inside-wave = brain-off.
After two-and-a-half hours in the water (actually probably more like two-and-a-half minutes), my arms were dead. The hardest part of the day wasn't the actual surfing but paddling back to the other side of the breaking waves after each turn. I felt so happy, though. There is nothing like the feeling of being in the ocean. I probably stood up decently two times total, both of which, when I looked up, Boricua was contentedly reading a book under a palm tree haha. He didn't, however, fail to capture all the moments when I stood like a skier or rode the board on my knees! ;)
After surfing, we went straight to our favorite place to get frappés de Nutella, Don Frappé! If we're on the west side of the island, we have to go. It's tradition.
