Misnomer

Although I'd arrived late a night and slept only 5 hours, the call time for the first day of surf camp was 6 a.m. The restaurant unfortunately did not open until 7:30 so there was no opportunity for a coffee drink or food before getting in the water. Luckily I always travel with a supply of Clif Bars so I wasn't completely out of fuel, just low energy.

The view from my room

After an introductory theory session and some pop up practice with Coach Stanley, Canadians Sherri and Max and I joined Jordy and Scott from Australia and Sara from France in the van for a half hour drive to a beach town break called La Paz. It was all shortboards on top of the van (mine for the week was a 6'6" Firewire Greedy Beaver) except for Sherri's longboard.

While La Paz means peace, it was anything but peaceful.

We'd each been given a spiral-bound notebook where Stanley helped us to fill in a venue analysis as well as goals for the session. 

My sketch after Stanley augmented it 

After warm-ups led by assistant coach Santos, we carried our boards across the rock and cobblestone beach to near the waterline. I was already feeling trepidation at the sight of 4-5' shorebreak that was the price of admission to the point break's overhead waves. There was no channel and not a rip current to be found.

My fears were warranted as it proved impossible for me to make it to the outside. I tried several times, with Santos urging me on, but only had holddowns in the spin cycle to show for it. He sat with me on the stony beach for a time, encouraging me to make another attempt, until I convinced him that I know my limits and this was one of them.

Sherri came in soon after. She said she had barely made it out and then realized she was too scared to try to catch any waves. 

Stanley helping Sherri from the water

We headed back to the hotel early with Stanley, leaving the others to it. And at long last, I got coffee and breakfast.

Finally coffee