Workshop Wednesdays Continue: Building my First Surfboard

I’m borrowing Nick’s respirator and IT’S PINK. (c) Sara Dyer

Workshop Wednesday’s at Maddie’s continue this week. It’s been a journey to get here but fuck am I glad I’m here.

We’d started out on surfboard making journey together, hashed out at a Surfrider NH event in the fall.  We’d hit up Dale from Surfrider for his wisdom and taken a trip to his “shop” as he liked to call it. “Foam is your FRIEND,” he repeated, over and over again. I’d spun through Steph F’s collection of longboards, becoming completely and utterly confused, and going back to the drawing board with what board to make.

That phase took quite some time: Maddie and I’d hemmed and hawed [read: agonized] over what type of board to make, pulling out possibly every single board on the racks at Cinnamon Rainbows [bless your hearts], and, upon deciding, hit Book and Bar in Portsmouth one cold winter’s night to order our blanks from Green Light Surf Comp over cups of savory teas.

Then COVID hit. And, stemming from an abundance of caution, I’d decided I’d put my project on hold, nervous at the thought of the two of us working in the poorly ventilated basement together.

Maddie persevered and after seeing her complete her periwinkle purple surfboard, the FOMO set in big time.

With a few months under my belt of weirdo Twilight Zone, and one another being within our inner social circles, I started the project back up.

This week, I used Scott’s orbital sander [thanks Scott!] to try to get close enough to the outline of the board so I can start handshaping. The foam was starting to separate from the stringer at both ends so I added some glue and smushed one end as I only had one “smusher”type thing in my car.

I’d forgotten to pick up a weight or a bungee that would allow me to get close with the sander to the sides so it kept bucking like a bronco.

I think the process is teaching me to just find yourself in the middle of the process. Do the thing and you will have the power. And don’t overthink it:

I found myself in front of 20 different varieties / levels of grit at the hardware store prior to getting to Maddie’s. My head started turning to combust and I was just like “No. I’m just going to grab a couple pieces and see how it goes.” Each sheet of sandpaper cost a buck. I think I can spare myself the agony of a 45-minute brain-melting Google search for a buck.

Having a space to go and be quiet and turn off my phone except for the music and just zone out is truly heavan on earth. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

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Drawing the Ocean: A Perfect and Strange Morning

The other day, an early morning, before work, I jumped out at Long Sands.

It was a weird day — it seemingly looked a lot cleaner from the shore but paddling out, it was disorganized and strange. It was one of those days where you feel like perfect waves are going by all around you and you somehow keep winding up in the wrong spot. So I settled. I’ll just sit and bob right here, I thought. I stayed around where I was, paddled for what came there and I was grateful for it.

The sun was shining, and there were only a few people out, and I felt so so good, so filled with gratitude and joy. And that’s when I had the experience I’d never had before, of the ocean coming to me. Out of nowhere, perfect rolling glassy waves came through, right where I was sitting, right to me. It felt purposeful and it felt like whatever vibrations had rippled off me, off those feelings of joy and gratitude and acceptance had nudged the water to throw some perfect ones towards me.

It was a perfect and strange morning.

Warm water, bare feet, sloppy joes

We’re back in business people. The beaches are open, as I mentioned in my previous post and it’s ON.

The two months the beaches were closed, I swore I’d be out there as often as possible and I haven’t let myself down. In FACT, June 1, I started a challenge to yoga, meditate and paddle every day. I haven’t been 3/3 every day but I’ve been nearly there and it feels really good.

Enforcing this challenge for surfing has been the strangest and most surprising part. I’m going to be honest—sometimes it makes going surfing feel like a chore. That’s typically just the feeling while I’m driving up to the beach, and by the time I’m paddling out, that feeling has dissipated but it’s interesting. My theory is that so much of our lives feel controlled or forced in some way and surfing, for me, has always been a portal to absolute freedom, that adding it to the list of “things I have to do today” robs it of some glitter. Having it constrained in some more rigid way has felt awkward and strange to me and, quite frankly, not great but the moment I’m in the water, that grouchiness is gone.

The big win this week was jumping into what felt like bath water yesterday. I don’t know which generous water god sent currents of warm aqueous bliss up the New England coast but I bow to you and light a candle in your honor. I jumped in gloveless for the second time this year and couldn’t even believe it. I quite literally stayed out longer because it was so goddamn warm and just putting my hands into the water that typically numbs them within seconds was amazing. Today was a bit colder but I said fuck it, and went booty-less anyway. It was cold at first but I was used to it after five minutes or so.

The waves once more were chunky as they’ve been this wk, with short periods, but they had some power to them. Some great sets rolled through that I just wasn’t in the right spot for but I had a sweet drop on one wave that left me marveling at the distance between where I was a couple years ago and now. There’s just this confidence and faith that I’ve got this when I’m standing at the top of a wave that could only come with so much time on the water.

Happy place. (C) Sara Dyer