Surfing!

We had a spare day in Rainbow Beach (I love this place!), so we decided to use some Christmas money from Cathy's Aunt to let everybody try some surfing.  Sadly, I didn't get a lot of pictures from this adventure, but it was fun!

We all headed down to Double Island point again, this time loaded up with boards. We did a bit of an instruction on the beach, with some practice, and I felt like it seemed simple enough to try out in the water.

The waves were low since the wind was calm, which was good for the kids, since they didn't need to fight the waves, but not so good if you need a bigger push to get up.

Avery went first.  Our instructor Reese was gave her a push when the first wave came, and she stood up, first try!  She rode it til it petered out, jumped off, waited for another, hopped on, and stood up again, all by herself! 

Well, this looked even easier than I thought!  I laid on my board to paddle out and was surprised at how hard it was to even balance on the board laying down!  I got out and waited for a wave as Trent showed us how to do it too.  Seems the kids have a better knack, since it was taking us a few tries to even kneel on the board.  Timing seems to be everything, when catching a wave.

Meanwhile, Avery had ridden her wave all the way to shore so I was coming in to help her back out, when she let out a scream.  I raced in to see what got her.  Her leg had a blue tentacle thread hanging from it.  I unteathered our boards and carried her to the beach.  Someone got the instructor and he confirmed it was a bluebottle sting.  It is also known as by the more ominous name "Portuguese Man'o'war".  She cried for a bit (I would probably too) and I got some ice from some lifeguards to help numb it.  At one point you could see the inflammed tentacle welts all along her leg.  Poor girl.  I went back out and Cathy sat with her for a bit, trying to convince her to try again.

Once back out, I figured out the timing a bit more and managed to get up on one knee (Chris had shown that this was a good strategy, and she credited her curling experience with its inception).  One more good wave and I was up, standing, for a full 3 seconds or so.  Very cool.  Cathy also stood at least once or twice.

We tried off and on for 20, helping Avery (who came back out) and Trent who were both doing great. 

At one point, Reese noticed a bloom of bluebottles circling Chris and decided to call it a morning.  The waves had dropped off even more so it was harder to find big enough ones to take you for more than a second or two.

After lunch back at the hotel, and ice cream to balance out the jelly sting, the kids worked on their journals, and then we rented a couple sand boards to try out on the dunes.  Think sand-tobogganing.  The rental boards had some problems going, though, and it was hard to get them moving at all, even with tonnes of wax and a 45 degree slope.  Some others had better success with running starts and boogie boards, but I think tobogganing wins this round.  Sand in the face doesn't melt either.

Another (our last) gorgeous day at Rainbow Beach ended up with an amazing thunderstorm display, so the kids sat on the balcony with popcorn and watched the show.

Chris is wayyyy down there!

Avery is wayyy up there!