It’s been a good couple of weeks here on the aptly named Sunshine Coast. As an aside, I have to say I don’t really understand the nomenclature here. Sunshine Coast seems to be the name of both the city and the region? Am I on the Sunshine Coast? Am I in Sunshine Coast? Truly, these are the big questions.

Anyway, things have been moving along since the last post. I found an actual free camp and immensely enjoyed the feeling of sleeping without a nagging voice in my head worrying about whether I would end up getting a ticket. I got blackout curtains set up, cut to the shape of the windows and with magnets sewn in so I can stick them on and remove them when I want. It’s not what anyone would mistake for high quality work, but it mostly does the job (I’m going to add a couple more magnets to make them fully cover all around the edges) and considering I have absolutely zero aptitude for arts or crafts or fine motor skills, I’m pretty happy with them.

There has finally been some surf this past week, so I’ve spent lots of time getting out and trying to get stronger so I can become something of a competent surfer again. Trying to get to be a decent surfer is really a philosophical and attitudinal challenge as much as anything else. You need good enough conditions to surf, but not such good conditions that there are tons of other people out and you can’t get any waves. There are many skills you need to learn—reading the waves, paddling, getting through waves that are breaking on you, catching a wave, standing up, any kind of turning, the right kind of turning to stay in the wave and maximize your ride, and probably more that I don’t even know about. Many of these skills depend on each other. For example, you can’t practice turning and staying in the wave until you can read waves well enough to catch them well enough to stand up well enough to learn to turn.

But the precursor to all of these skills is simple strength and endurance. Paddling a surfboard is surprisingly hard work, and unless you have incredibly favorable conditions, a surf session involves a lot of paddling. When you’re just starting out you really only have one or two attempts at catching a wave in you, before your arms feel like wet noodles randomly pinballing around. This makes getting into surfing, and even more so getting back into surfing after having once been competent, mostly a Zen type challenge in striving without expectation. To put it simply, trying to surf when you’re not strong or good enough isn’t especially fun. And I’m not especially tuned to delayed gratification. So it can be a struggle.

The key for me to learn, and now re-learn, to surf, has been to completely reset my expectations. Rather than going out thinking “I’m going to surf today and it’s going to be fun!”, I go out thinking “I’m going to exercise today. It’s going to be lots of paddling, and it’s going to be hard. As an aside, there is a slim possibility that at some point my feet may touch the board. That would be an unexpected and delightful bonus.”. There’s definitely a lesson here about applying this attitude to all of life, but that’s still a work in progress.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that I was able to bring that attitude out for a bunch of surf sessions, I’m already feeling a lot stronger, and there is at least some “it’s like riding a bike” aspect to it. I’m still definitely not a good surfer, but I’m reasonably close to competent, and I’m able to have fun, which is most important. I spent a few days surfing at not very good beach breaks, with the upside that there was literally no one else out there. This is key because it lets you try for every single wave. After getting a bit more confident I decided I should, in fact, try the world famous Noosa surf spots. Turns out they’re famous for a reason! The wave is incredibly consistent and the area is gorgeous. The downside to this is that the spot is always a bit more crowded than the waves are good, and if you’re not very good at surfing it’s a bit of slim pickins out there. So I’m glad I tried it out (barnacle-sliced feet notwithstanding), but I’m also excited to go back to a lonely beach break today.

That’s pretty much it these days. I’ve got an oil change scheduled for next week, and am thinking more and more about starting the journey westward. I don’t have those plans nailed down yet so won’t ramble about them here, but the summary is that I’m really excited to see some desert. Lastly, here are some photos.