David Michael Bruno

Surf Update - First "real" wave

Not a long post here. Just a quick surf update to say that today after work I paddled out and caught my first wave that I can actually say I surfed. No falling over after a few seconds. No riding mush straight to the beach.

Nothing fancy. It was a right that was bit more than waist high. Even so, I caught it, turned down the line, and rode the the thing. I even managed a slow-motion cutback that would have impressed a sea slug.

True to form, I didn't leave the water uninjured. I was surfing a little south of my normal spot and didn't know the reef there. Managed to cut my foot a bit, though not too bad.

Standing Up In The World (Surf Report)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to surf for a couple of hours in between dropping off and picking up my youngest daughter at pre-kindergarten. Instead I chose to do bills and catch up on some home-chores. I figured so long as I was going to be Mr. Mom for a day I ought to act like it, prioritizing household responsibilities over personal thrill seeking.

There are so many opportunities to sit out life. To wander off to a movie or nap or paddle out for a surf. Of course this is an example of the complexity of life. The activities we use to check out of life are the very same ones we use to invigorate our lives. A good movie (or better yet, a good book) might twang our heart strings, playing us for an emotional fool. When it is over, we return to our daily life better off, more appreciative of the possibilities for our real-life relationships.

And who could deny that a weekend nap isn’t a life-changing activity?

Surfing too is complicated. Presently I want to surf as much as possible, regardless of the quality of the waves. I just want to get better. After a couple months of surfing I am able to usually get up on my feet when I manage to catch a small wave. It isn’t often and it ain’t pretty, but it’s progress.

Even so, already I’ve felt the tug to sit out. Not sit out of the water. But sit out, as in to use surfing as an unhealthy means to check out of life. This is hard to explain. I get this urge when hiking or writing or traveling. It’s the temptation to keep on going. The temptation lose touch with the world even while participating in an activity that is natural and lively.

Surf Report (with a bonus Stuff Report)

After one month, I have reached a couple milestones in my attempts to learn to surf. I can no longer remember the exact number of times I’ve paddled out. Likely it has been between fifteen and twenty. Perhaps a few more.

My other accomplishment was a head full of staples. I cracked my noggin open on my board in the shallows near a beach in Encinitas, and it required five staples to patch up. Surfer friends had told me that it was only a matter of time before something on my body got sliced open. (Aside: staples aren’t as bad as stitches. Doesn’t seem like that should be the case, but it is. Staples good. Stitches bad, especially the gross skin tugging feeling when they’re removed.)

The injury kept me out of the water for a couple of weeks. What surprised me most was my eagerness to get back in and have another go at it. A couple times I seriously thought about ditching my doctor’s advice and paddling out with the staples still lodged in my head. I take this as positive, rather than foolish, motivation. Even though surfing is down right hard and it seems like it will take many more months to get the hang of it, the experience has been enjoyable. Sticking with it seems inevitable.

Initially I was making do with two things: a wetsuit and a surfboard. Surfing seemed like a pretty cool hobby for the 100 Thing Challenge guy. Yet I have realized that it will require a few more than just a couple of personal possessions to surf. My wetsuit feels like an electric blanket turned to high in the warmer summer waters. I’ve since bought a wetsuit jacket to wear with board shorts. I’ve added a second pair of board shorts to my clothing. I also have commandeered a storage bin and a water jug, to keep my car trunk from getting wet and to wash the ocean water out of my hair respectively. And I have soft racks for carrying my board on top of my car, though I’ve since learned that if I open a couple of the doors just right and turn the board on its side and push really hard, I can cram it into my car. I probably don’t technically need the racks.

At any rate, seven personal possessions are now devoted to surfing. That kind of seems like a lot to me. I get the sense that it wouldn’t be hard to double that in one weekend surf shop outing. For some reason, ten things seems like a good number for a hobby, even though I don’t really practice what I preach here. I have more than ten camping items. How many items does it take you to enjoy your favorite hobby?

A final thought about surfing and stuff. I am desiring a new surfboard already. Well sort of. I desire to work hard at getting better so that I can ride a smaller, more fun board. The idea of riding something more capable than my current board is one motivation. It’s not the only or the main thought that gets me back in the water each time. But it crosses my mind. And I have to admit that striving for a goal that includes a new personal possession has some appeal. It feels dangerous to me, though. Like it would be possible to start wanting the thing more than what the thing is for.

In Year 37

Thirty-seven years after I was born and raised in San Diego, on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 4 p.m., I surfed for the first time. Throughout my life people have wondered how a native San Diegan like myself could get through nearly four decades of life without ever surfing (truth be told, without ever having held a surfboard). I’ve never been able to say. It just happened.

Even now, I doubt my efforts to learn to surf this summer would have much force if it were not for a few life circumstances. I’m no longer a practicing entrepreneur, having sold my stake in a company I helped build. Thus my work hours are not of my own choosing, which means my loyal mutt Piper and I no longer run a few miles each morning. He’s sad, and I’m out of shape.

Instead of “working for myself” (entrepreneurs like to say they work for themselves, but that’s probably the falsest of all the claims they make), I now work for Point Loma Nazarene University, which happens to sit about three hundred feet above and a quarter mile east of the Pacific Ocean. And I work with a non-San-Diego-native surfer, who’s my de facto instructor.

The last reason that’s motivated me to take up surfing is harder to explain. It’s probably a mixture of middle-age restlessness, desire to overcome challenges and fears, a longing to fill my life with activities that are both physical and natural, the pleasure of doing something that impresses my young daughters, and accomplishing a goal that seems as unlikely as any I can imagine. “Waterman” is the least-likely moniker anyone who knows me would call me.  I do also have a sneaky suspicion that the next six months of attempting to surf might provide metaphors for my book about the 100 Thing Challenge and simplifying my life.

Though it did take two purchases to get into surfing: a wetsuit and a surfboard.

Four times. That’s how many times I’ve paddled out. It has taken only four attempts at surfing to conclude that I need only two things to learn to surf this summer. Humility and time. Likely a lot of both, though probably mostly humility. The third time out, I strained an oblique. The fourth time out I aggravated it, and added an egg-sized knot on my right foot from getting hit by my board. I managed to catch about three waves I’ve ridden on my belly, though I do plan to stand up eventually.

More to come...

Trip Report - Rabbit Peak

January 18-19, 2009

Trip Report - Rabbit Peak from Dave Bruno on Vimeo.

[* see end of article for correction]

The plan is to accomplish nine solid adventures in 2009. Ten in 2010. Eleven in 2011. And so on. It's a great plan, until the turn of the next century. This year we decided to start with a challenge, Rabbit Peak. It's a 6,640' desert peak in the Santa Rosa Range near Anza-Borrego State Park in California. It is also the highest southerly-most peak in California. And, it is considered to be among the hardest treks of the Sierra Club Hundred Peaks Section. In other words, the first adventure was meant to be a kick-in-the-pants.

Originally we considered making it a day hike from the east. Allegedly that is a fifteen-mile broken-escalator trudge from below sea level, near the Salton Sea. But we read the eastern route is closed in January out of respect for modest big horn sheep who prefer to make hay during the wintry months. So we adjusted, and hiked the more traditional southerly approach, which adds an extra seven miles and an overnight bivy on top of Villager Peak. Since we didn't spot any big horn sheep on our trip, I have to assume they were, in fact, reveling out east.