About me & this page
Hi! I'm Alicia, I'm 23, I live in San Diego and I have been riding a bodyboard since
I was 12, when my uncle handed me his old beat-up board and a pair of fins and
pushed me into a two-foot wave. That was it. I was hooked. Eleven years later I'm out
there most mornings before work (I do the early shift at a coffee place, which is the
whole reason I picked that job).
I made this page because every summer I watch people rent a board, walk into the
water with no fins, get pounded, and go home thinking bodyboarding is boring. It's
not boring. They just didn't have anybody to show them the basics. So here are the
basics. If you're just starting, read the safety part even if
you skip everything else. Okay? Okay!
Gear (you need less than you think, but you NEED the fins)
| The board |
For most grown-ups something around 41 to 43 inches long. The rule of thumb is that standing up, the board
should come to somewhere around your belly button. The cheap foam boards from the drugstore are fine to find out if
you like it; a real board with a slick plastic bottom and a stiffer core costs more but goes way faster and lasts for
years. Mine is three seasons old and still fine. |
| Fins!!! |
Swim fins. Short, stiff, the kind made for bodyboarding and bodysurfing, not the long floppy scuba kind.
This is the thing beginners skip and it is the whole sport. Without fins you can't get out past the break,
you can't catch anything but whitewater, and you can't get out of a rip. With fins you can paddle into a wave
with your arms AND kick, and suddenly you're catching everything. Fins should be snug but not cutting off your
circulation. Fin socks (thin neoprene) stop the blisters and rubs on your ankles that we all call "fin cuts." |
| Leashes |
Two kinds. A board leash that goes around your wrist or your upper arm (bicep leashes are more
comfortable, in my opinion) so you don't lose your board in a wipeout, and fin tethers, little straps that
go from each fin to your ankle, because fins come off in big whitewater and a fin costs more than you think.
Ask me how I know. |
| What to wear |
San Diego water is in the 60s most of the year and high 50s in winter. Summer: a rash guard or a spring
suit (short sleeves and legs). Fall and spring: a 3/2 full wetsuit. Winter: 3/2 or 4/3, plus a hood if you're a
wimp like me. A rash guard under the suit stops the rubbing on your chest from lying on the board. Somewhere
warmer, you might only need trunks and a rash guard. Somewhere colder, ask a local. |
| Sunscreen |
Waterproof, SPF 30 or more, put on 20 minutes before you go in so it has time to dry, and reapply when
you come out. Face, ears, back of the neck, backs of your legs (they stick out behind the board and burn like
crazy). Zinc on your nose looks silly. Sunburn looks worse. I'm 23 and I already have a dermatologist. |
Prone and drop-knee
Prone is lying on your belly, which is how everybody starts and how most of
us ride most of the time. Here's how it goes:
- Hold the board with your hands at the top corners (the nose), elbows resting
on the deck. Your hips should be at or a little forward of the tail. If you're too
far forward, the nose digs in and you go over. Too far back and the board drags.
- Paddle out with your arms and kick with your fins. Fins do most of the work.
- When a wave comes, turn toward the beach, kick hard, and as it picks you up,
pull yourself forward on the board a little and let it go.
- To turn, lean and put weight on the inside rail (edge). Drag your inside hand
on the water to slow down and turn tighter. Lean your weight toward the nose to
speed up, toward the tail to slow down or stall.
- To go along the wave instead of straight at the beach (which is the whole idea
once you're past day one), look down the line where you want to go, angle the board
that way, and put your weight on that rail.
Drop-knee (some people call it "dk") is the fancy one. Your front foot is up on
the board near the nose with the knee bent, and your back leg is folded under you
with the knee down on the deck near the tail, kind of half-kneeling. It's more like
surfing: you turn with your whole body, and you can do these big carving turns off
the top. It's also way harder. It took me two summers to be able to do it on an
actual wave instead of in the whitewater. You need a bit of a bigger board for
it, and you need to already be good at prone. Don't try it on day three. Try it on
day thirty.
Duck diving (getting out through the waves)
The whitewater from a broken wave will push you all the way back to the beach if
you just hold onto your board and take it in the face. So you go under it. This is
the thing that makes bodyboards great for beginners: a bodyboard is small, so
duck diving is easy compared to a surfboard.
- Paddle straight at the oncoming whitewater. Don't turn sideways, ever.
- About six feet before it hits, grab the nose with both hands, push the nose
down under the water, and push your knee (or your foot) into the tail to sink the
back of the board too.
- Duck your head. Let the wave go over you. You'll feel it pull at you.
- Once it's past, pull the nose up and you pop out the back. Keep paddling.
If it's too big to get under, and sometimes it is, let the board go (the leash
holds it), dive to the bottom and grab sand, and let it roll over you. Then come
up, get your board, and keep going. Timing is everything; you'll get pounded a
lot at first. Everyone does.
Reading a beach break
Most beginners are at a beach break, which means waves breaking over sand.
(Reef breaks and point breaks are for later; they're usually more crowded, more
serious, and the bottom is rock.) Sandbars move around, so a beach break changes
week to week, and the trick is to stand on the sand for five or ten minutes before
you go in and watch. Seriously, five minutes of watching saves an hour of
frustration.
- Where are the waves breaking? Look for the spot where they consistently
peak up and fold over. That peak is over a sandbar, and that's where you want to be
sitting, just outside of it.
- Which way do they peel? A good wave breaks from one end to the other,
left or right, so you can ride along it. A wave that breaks all at once in a
straight line ("closes out") just dumps you.
- How often do the sets come? Waves come in groups. Count the time between
bigger sets so you know how long you've got to paddle out during a lull.
- Where's the calm-looking channel? Water going out has to go somewhere.
Look for a darker, flatter, choppier strip where waves aren't breaking. That's a
rip current. It'll take you out fast (some people use them on purpose), but you'd
better know exactly what you're doing, and if you're reading this page you don't
yet. Which brings me to:
SAFETY. Please read this part.
Rip currents. A rip is a river of water flowing out to sea through the surf.
It won't pull you under, but it will pull you out, and people drown every year
because they try to swim straight back in against it, get exhausted, and panic.
If you're being pulled out: don't fight it. Stay on your board (it floats, that's
your life jacket). Swim or paddle PARALLEL to the beach, sideways, until you're
out of the current, then come in with the waves. If you can't get out of it, float
and wave an arm at the lifeguard. Rips are usually narrow. This is the one thing on
this whole page I'd want you to remember if you forget everything else.
Swim at a lifeguarded beach, especially when you're new. Look for the flags
and signs. Ask the lifeguard where the rips are today; they know and they'll tell you.
Never go alone. Not even when it's small. Especially not when it's big.
Know what's under you. Beach break = sand. Fine. Anywhere with rocks or a
reef: don't dive head first, don't go until you know the spot, and mind the tide.
Stay out of the way of surfers and don't drop in on someone's wave (see below).
And keep an eye out for swimmers; a board to the head hurts.
If you're not sure, don't go out. The ocean will be there tomorrow.
|
Fall 1999 session log 
I keep this in a little notebook in my car. September is my favorite month here:
the water's still warm from summer and the crowds are gone. Board: my regular 42.
| Date |
Spot |
Waves |
Notes |
| Sept. 4 | Seagate Beach, south end | 2-3 ft, glassy | Labor Day weekend, crowded. Got maybe eight good rights. Fin cut on left ankle, forgot socks. |
| Sept. 8 | Third Jetty | 3-4 ft, a little bumpy | Dawn patrol before work. Only four of us out. Landed two drop-knee rides all the way through! Best session of the month. |
| Sept. 12 | Seagate Beach | 1-2 ft, mushy | Took my cousin Danny (11) for his first time. Whitewater rides only. He wants to go back. Another one hooked. |
| Sept. 15 | Pelican Cove | 4-5 ft, strong | Bigger than I wanted. Strong rip on the north side, watched a guy get pulled out and swim sideways out of it like he should. Got two waves and came in. Nothing to prove. |
| Sept. 19 | Third Jetty | 2-3 ft, offshore wind | Perfect. Little peeling lefts all morning. Stayed out two and a half hours and was late to open the shop. Worth it. |
| Sept. 22 | Seagate, north end | 2 ft, closing out | Sandbar moved since Labor Day. Everything walled up. Twenty minutes and out. Some days are like that. |
| Sept. 25 | Third Jetty | 3 ft, clean | Saturday morning, good crew out, nobody dropping in on anybody. Water still 66. October, please be kind. |
(I'll keep adding to this through the fall. Wave heights are my guess from the beach, not official.)
Why bodyboarders and surfers should get along
Okay. Every bodyboarder has been called a "sponger" or worse by some surfer, and
every surfer has had some kid on a boogie board drop in on his wave. Here's my
speech, which I've given in parking lots:
- We're all out there for the same reason. It's 6:30 in the morning, the
sun's coming up, and there are waves. That's the whole club.
- The rules are the same for everybody. The person closest to the peak
(where the wave first breaks) has the wave. Don't drop in on somebody who's already
riding. Don't snake around behind people to steal position. Paddle out around the
break, not through where people are riding. If you're on a bodyboard, you follow
those rules, and you have the same right to a wave as anybody on a longboard.
- Bodyboarders can ride stuff surfers can't. Steep, hollow, dumpy waves
that break in shallow water. Some of the best waves in the world are bodyboard
waves. And surfers can ride long mushy waves that we can't do much with. There's
plenty of ocean.
- A lot of us do both. My uncle surfs AND rides a bodyboard, depending on
the day. Half the "real surfers" I know started on a boogie board when they were
eight.
- Be good, and be nice. The best answer to a surfer who thinks bodyboarders
are a joke is to ride well, follow the rules, and say good morning. Works every
time. Well, most of the time.
Other pages I like
Dawn Patrol: Surfing the Central Coast - Miguel up in Pismo Beach. See? Surfers and spongers, friends.
The Beachcomber's Log - Doris on Sanibel Island, for when the waves are flat.
Hula for Beginners - just because.
The whole Pipeline neighborhood
Photos coming: my roommate took a bunch at Third Jetty with her camera and the film's at the drugstore. Watch this space.
|
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Bodyboarding Basics
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