7:45. Wake up. Pull on board shorts. Sunscreen on face. Pull damp rashguard over my head and tie it into the laces of my shorts. Board under arm. Lock room. Walk barefoot down rocky driveway, across the road, and through Witch’s Rock Surf Camp. I scan the beach and it’s quiet. The sun has been up for two full hours already, and with no wind and poor swell, the water is mostly clusters of beginners and their instructors. I strap leash to ankle, and head out to a spot left of the main group. The waves are small and sporadic, but it’s warm in the water and I’m happy to just be floating under the sun.

A clean wave is pulsing through, and I turn and paddle. My tail lifts behind me, and in another two strokes I’m being pulled along forward with the wave. Hands flat in front of me, I arch my back, look left, then right, swing my feet up under me, and move to stand up. What I feel instead is the board kicking out to the side and sending me flat on my back in the mushy whitewater of the wave broken under me. For a second there, I’d almost forgotten that I didn’t really know how to surf.

Almost three years ago, I spent eight days in Tamarindo. I stayed in the same hotel I’m in now, ate at the same restaurant I had breakfast in this morning, and spent time on this same stretch of beach. I had even bought my surfboard at a shop on the other side of town. At the time, I’d progressed as a beginner surfer to the point where I was succeeding in popping up the majority of attempts, and had recently ridden my first wave down the line, rather than being pushed directly into shore. I’d been ready to learn how to surf a shortboard, and was confident that by the end of my 20 day trip, I’d be carving bottom turns and shredding gnarly cutbacks. Sometimes what you plan, doesn’t come to pass.

A small sampling of the extent of my calamities can be read in my post A Comedy of Errors, but the summary is that on the third day of my trip, I burnt my feet so badly that I couldn’t walk, let alone surf. I’d had sandals stolen, been thwarted by massive close-out sessions and red tide, and at the end of my trip had my bag with nearly all my possessions stolen. It was a series of amazing and enjoyable occurrences, marred by several unfortunate highlights. In the end, I’d hardly surfed at all, but I was bringing home a board of my own that I’d be able to use in my local waters off Vancouver Island, Washington, and Oregon.

In the intervening years, I did not find myself struggling into a wetsuit to enter the frigid waters of the Pacific Northwest on more than a few occasions. I struggled with weight gain after a road bike crash involving three fractured vertebrae, and often found myself sluggish and awkward in the water. Worse, was the feeling that I had once been able to do something I was now repeatedly failing at. Every time I got in the water, I found I just couldn’t stand up. The harder I tried, the harder I took it when I failed again. I was unable to let it go, and haven’t had a decent ride on a surf board since the fall of 2006.

This morning I follow the ritual. Wake up. Pull on board shorts. Sunscreen on face. Pull damp rashguard over my head and tie it into the laces of my shorts. Board under arm. Lock room. Walk barefoot down rocky driveway, across the road, and through Witch’s Rock Surf Camp. I’m in the water, and paddling for a wave. I’ve been pulling my feet up under me, but until know failing to fully stand up. This time I leave the crouch, and extend my legs. I’ve thrown my front foot forward enough to allow the board to level out and plane along the water’s surface, and am riding into shore. I haven’t managed to turn the board, and the weak wave disappears almost as quickly as it formed up, but I’ve done something I’ve barely managed to do with any sort of confidence in the last three years.

It’s only my third day in the water, and I’m still carrying around the extra pounds of an inactive fall and winter, but I can already feel my paddling getting stronger, my pop-up more fluid, and my confidence growing. I have a lot more time here in this country, and plan to be surfing twice a day. For learning most anything, repetition is key, and this afternoon I will be back in the water paddling into wave after wave. I’ve allowed myself to be embarrassed of my ability for too long. Today I’m awful at this ridiculous sport–and tomorrow I’ll still be awful–but sooner or later I won’t, and by then hopefully I’ll have learned a thing or two about persistence.