Santa Teresa - Our last week, fingers crossed for some surfing footage...

Our last week in the paradise of Santa Teresa.  Looks like the rainy season has come early.  I woke up all keen for my morning surf this morning, but before I got out there (we woke up late), the rain, thunder and lightning began!  Well I've surfed in storms and lightning before (and we've laughed about getting hit by lightning ha ha as if what are the chances) but as you do when in a foreign country I checked the facts.  After a search on surfing/lightning on the internet I found out that lightning strikes the tallest thing on a flat surface, and so it's not very safe, and so I'm going to blog instead this morning, until the lightning stops!  I have all day to surf, no need to be all impatient and go out with a lightning storm going on!

Anyway, Snowdon is swinging in the hammock reading is new (mano segundo - second hand) book, whilst I tap away on the keys for one of my last blogs in Santa Teresa.

I'm currently reading the 'Chaneling' book (by Lita de Alberdi) that Snowdon got from the shop in town, and enjoyed.  This line popped out at me this morning:

Self love means being honest with yourself, not deceiving yourself to be pretending that you are nicer than you really are, and coming to know yourself fully.

I've realised in my blogs that I often don't share fully.  Snowdon, although he rarely shares fully out loud, does so in his blog writing.  I think this is great.  I shared with him my reserve in putting everything on a blog.  He said, but your life should be an open book shouldn't it?  I'm not sure, maybe it should.  This blog is a brave start!

Less than a week left here. I really want to publish a vid of my surfing progress (and some wipeouts) over the last 5 weeks, on this blog. This is partly fueled by catching some great shots of Snowdon surfing and my envy of him being able to post surfing material (considering his high amount of film time in ratio to waves caught)!  I'm not sure when I'll have another chance to surf so much, so I may be at my peak surfing ability! Only thing is that I can't do this myself, I need a cameraperson, thus am dependent on Snowdon.  My current observation is that seems to be available when there's no surf, not keen when there is surf, and not available in the morning when the surf is best (although fortunately he is coming around to the idea of coming down to the beach in the morning after meditation - this morning was going to be the first).

One gorgeous day (30th March), a rare day as it was a calm afternoon, glassy surf (usually the wind picks up at around 10am and grows throughout the afternoon, until it settles an hour or so before the sun goes down) I asked him to video me - a big step.  In the past I'd have thought that requesting to be filmed is way too vain.  To my delight, he agreed. The surf was great and I got stuck in.  Early on I returned to the beach to apply zinc to prevent my face from burning up, it was such a hot day, and I made sure I mentioned to Snowdon that I was going to 'catch some real good waves now' (eg. be ready to video me).  To my delight I kept my word and caught some of the best waves of the trip, really long lefts and even pulled off some new tricks that I'd been trying out!  As it was high tide I was finishing each ride about 20-30m from where he was.  Perfect video conditions and I was so happy that I was able to provide good material.

After several of these rides I looked up to see him lying face down facing away from the water, reading his book.  Oh well I thought, he must have already caught some good ones.  I mentally tried not to get my hopes up eg. he may not have got some of the best ones, and I may not look quite as flash as I think I look on film...  But he did say he'd film me so I was pretty certain that I'd have something to brag/blog about.  After 1-2 hours the wind picked up and I came in from my surf.  I tried to control my enthusiasm (not sure what the point of that is, I've just learned to do that for some reason).  Then I grabbed the camera for a look.

This is what I found.  Nearly a minute of our neighbour Federica entering the water and paddling out back for her surf with me collecting my board up after catching a wave in the background (this was useful for my current focus on being fem but not for any surfing video), me sitting out the back waiting for a wave, some random footage of waves, a lot of footage of our neighbours dog Polo chewing a tree, and in the midst of all this ONE shot of me getting a 1sec half-ride on a wave before it closed out.  I was pissed!! I couldn't believe it and couldn't understand how after so much material in great conditions with a clear request, I ended up with nothing for my blog.

After discussion later, Snowdon's perspective was:  I hadn't come to the beach to video you, I got one wave then got bored of waiting and wanted to read my book, so I did.  There's not much point arguing with that (although I probably tried).  It did make me consider finding the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'.

My learning from that day - be far more direct!!  Since then I've also begin to notice where I don't trust myself to be direct and assert what I want, in case it doesn't work out.  I mean what if I asked to be filmed really clearly and then didn't catch any good waves.  I'd have to be responsible for the result.  I have this background idea that going with the flow of other people is good karma, but in reality it just makes it easy for me to avoid responsibility and make others wrong when it doesn't work out how I want it to.

Thus the summary is I grew from the experience and there is no viable surfing footage yet.  Five surfing days to go, so I'm being direct this week with my requests (vain or not) keeping my fingers crossed for  success, and at the same trying not to be 'attached/desperate' to it happening!  Snowdon has promised to assist me - so I'm willing my 'trust' vibes to be strong!

Stay tuned - it's fined up and I'm off for a surf now!