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Jason goes surfing (Not me in picture in case anyone was curious)

The place I am staying at has free bike and surf boards for hire. I decided that I am in a great place for surfing one of the best in the world so I should at least give it a try. Everything I know about surfing comes from what I have seen on TV. This includes watching many episodes of Baywatch. I also have seen the movies Point Break and Blue Crush both at least three times. I knew I was going to struggle with that type of background but I was up to give it a try. I went and got a board from the front desk and the guy picked one out for me a longer board that is soft the top feels like nerf ball material. I gave him my MN ID to hold for collateral and I was off to head across the street to the beach. I found somewhere to leave my sandals and towel on the beach and away I went. Things got off to a tough start as I was trying to get out past the surf break. This was quite a challenge it seemed that no matter how hard I tried to paddle past the breaking waves I could not get anywhere. I was being beat up wave after wave was crashing down on me and I could not make any headway. I was getting very discouraged and was thinking about throwing in the towel but I did not want to give up that easy. After about 30 minutes of constant battling and trying to get out a ways past the break I noticed a real surfer just ahead of me. Some how some way I made it out to the promise land and then I was excited. I knew that I would not be able to get up on a wave once I did catch one but I did not care that much. I realize that balance is important and I know that is not something that I am good at all. So now out was out with the surfers and just chilling and paddling around pretending I was waiting for the perfect wave to catch. The fact is that I worked so hard to get out here I wanted to enjoy it some. I was paddling around sitting on the board at times just trying to pretend I had any idea I knew what I was doing. After a while I decided that I should try and catch a wave and see what happens. It took me a few minutes to catch a wave and the one I caught was pretty fun but it all happened so fast that I never was anywhere near getting up on my feet. I was spit out of the wave but I was loving it. I then decided to get back out to the promise land past the surf break. It was not meant to be this time I was giving it a good effort but was being beaten up again. One wave threw me around and somehow the leash attached to my foot snapped the soft board back to me and the fins hit me in the head. I knew my head hurt but I was not sure if I was bleeding or not. I decided then that was enough surfing for me for one day. Total time in the water 1 hour. At least I got a good workout with all the fighting surfs and paddling. As I was headed back to the hostel one of the other guys staying here stopped me to tell me that my head was bleeding....I was not too surprised. Fun times. Now I will tell people that I went surfing in Australia, I will just leave out the details of how I did.