That's part of the food chain right there

I had just picked up the hire car at 5:30 am and was confused by pretty much everything. The steering wheel was on the worng side, every road had waaay too many lanes of traffic each side and I wasn’t entirely sure of the highway code in California. Within about 5 minutes I was to learn one very helpful caveat of information. You are allowed to turn right on a red light. Within another 5 minutes I was to learn my second lesson. Provided you drive like a psychopath within the speed limit, you can get away with pretty much anything, ESPECIALLY on the freeway. Overtake, undertake, cut people up, slam on, weave, all seem to be acceptable driving styles. Indicators I’m convinced are purely for decorative purposes and the horn should be used at least once every ten minutes. No apparent reason. Just use it. My third lesson was specifically to do with the car itself. There is more of the car on your right side than on your left. Sounds simple enough and looks blatantly obvious but for some reason you still seem to gravitate to a position on the road where the right hand side of your body is closest to a white line, not your left, as you should do. Taking a corner at 70mph on the Highway and clipping the curb soon rectifies this I have found.

I arrived in Santa Cruz with about an hour to spare before my surf lesson began. I noticed there was a surf shop right by ocean that did surf lessons so I assumed that this was the place I had booked my lessons with. There were a few others waiting for lessons so this reaffirmed my suspicion that I was in the right place. I went up and started chatting to a few of the people waiting on the steps of the shop. After hearing my accent and realising I was from England a few of them asked me to tell them a story just because they liked the sound of my northern monkey accent. Now I don’t know what it is but as soon as someone asks me to tell them a story I’m always transported back to a time when I was in Amsterdam. The story involves two hookers an umbrella from the banana bar and a man who looks like the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.

‘Sorry, can’t really think of one off the top of my head’ came my reply. ‘Maybe another time’ I thought to myself.

When the doors of the shop opened I was greeted by a guy who did that wavy hand in the shape of a telephone type thing that surfers seem to do to one another. I took this to mean hello although I’m still not sure if it means that or it’s an early indicator for the onset of seizure. Who knows. Upon talking to the chap I discovered that had come to the wrong place and I was to wait for a ‘dude’ who was going to pull up on the other side of the road in the not too distant future with a heap of surfboards. Sure enough, a van did pull up on the other side of the road with a heap of surf boards. This ‘dude’ also gave me the seizure wave but he also wasn’t my surf instructor. If I waited another 10 minutes a van was going to pull up with a h……… This was getting a bit tedious and I had every intention to join the first group, if they weren’t already in the water learning to surf. I had of course booked with a cowboy, a rogue, a man who wasn’t going to turn up. Just as I was losing faith a white dodge van spluttered it’s way over the hill reminding me of a scene from the film Uncle Buck. A few boards were strapped to the top and as it backfired it’s way into the car park I knew that this was to be my instructor.

I shall never judge a book by it’s cover again. Neil, my instructor, was one of the funniest Americans I was to meet on the trip and made a really good coach at surfing. Any of you who have seen the film ‘Point Break’ will have no doubt seen Keanu Reeves ‘popping’ up onto the board, landing in a perfect position to tackle the mightiest of waves. This is what we were to call ‘Plan A and for the life of me I could not do it. I either ended up with a lung full of water or my face planted on the board making a perfect face print where my feet should have been. I was to become a master of ‘Plan B’ effectively setting yourself up on the board and then standing up from that position. I would say that from expeience, surfing is similar to Golf in that when you’re doing well it is one of the best feelings you can get in sport. When you’re doing badly you get irate, spit the dummy out and this makes it almost impossible to do anything constructive.

The first of my problems was that I was so unfit that I struggled to do all the paddling involved and then leave enough energy to haul the 12 stone of pure bubblegum i call a body to my feet. The second is that I have an awful sense of balance. I ended up balancing on my tiptoes and sticking my ghetto booty out looking like a complete idiot.

‘No tippy toes and for god sake stop sticking your ass out. You look like a hooker ready for business’
‘Funny you should mention that cos I have a story about two hookers an umb……..’ maybe later. Now was a time for surfing.

I managed to surf successfully, not well, but successfully, after my first outing and was relishing the next days lesson hoping i could improve on my performance.

The following day Neil and I were joined by Britney who had apparently never surfed before but after seeing her on the board it looked like she was an extra in Keanu’s finest cinematic escapade (Point Break, not the Matrix).

‘Can you paddle’ Asked Neil before we all got in the water.
‘Yeah, a little bit’ replied Britney

What Britney failed to mention was that she is a Triathlete by rights and thought nothing of swimming several miles as a warm up to the rest of her training regime. Cow. I wasn’t jealous. Honest. I was starting to look like even more of a fool but still had tremendous fun for the remainder of the lesson. I’m now up to a stage where I can read the water, catch my own waves and actually ride them. Can’t say fairer than that after 2 lessons. The thing that capped the whole experience off was when we were all paddling out after catching a wave and a seal pup popped it’s head up about 10ft away from where we were. Britney and I were fascinated by our furry friend. Neil on the other hand was petrified.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ We asked
‘I thought it was a shark.’
‘A shark? It had a round head, big black eyes and whiskers’
‘Ok but you’re forgettin that that was part of the food chain right there 10ft from your board’

He made a good point but there were so many surfers and seals in the water before you got to us, I wasn’t all that concerned. Food for thought though.

The following day I was to head to Santa Barbara, about 70 miles from LA. I took the world famous Pacific Highway 1 and at first was a little bit disappointed by what I saw. Trees blocking the coastline and a tatty road ‘The world famous Highway 1 my backside’ I thought to myself. However, my misery was lifted when I reached Monterey Bay. From there on until I reached Santa Barbara I really couldn’t have asked for any better scenery (see photos for proof). If I had my time again I think I would have spent more time in the ‘Big Sur’ area to take in some of the national parks there. Still, you can’t have everything.

That pretty much wraps up my time between San Francisco and LA. For more tales on the ghetto that is LA and how I got on there without getting mugged see you next time.

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