This story is from Stuff

There’s a moment when you’re paddling for a wave and feel it surge beneath you, a perfect symbiosis of ocean swell and adrenaline when you know you’ve caught it – and then, you’re suddenly teetering on the precipice of a wall of water.

At that moment, your heart hangs in the air.

Are you positioned on the right part of the wave, balanced on the board so you can pop up in time, swooping down the face? Or will you have misjudged the moment, taking too long to stand up or getting your weight all wrong, falling and tumbling blind through the rushing void?

I have begun living for that moment, and the one after, when you’re flying down the wave, nothing but wild wet hair and kinetic energy. It’s a blue-green rush of pure joy, an orgasm of emotion that ends in the swirling caress of the sea.

I’ve always wanted to surf. I went a few times in my early 20s, renting a board with a mate when we lived at Sydney’s Manly Beach, heading out beyond the break with no fear or skills. We got smashed time and again, and boys and dancing were easier fun than paddling.

In the years since I’ve travelled, had two babies, and spent the last four years in rural Manawatū, with a winding and beautiful awa but no ocean to speak of.

We moved to Lyall Bay at the beginning of 2022 , close to the beach. In the week we arrived, surrounded by boxes, I signed up for a surfing lesson. I knew if I didn’t do it immediately I’d regret it, or life would cluster right up to the edges and I wouldn’t ever get around to it, which would be the worst kind of tragedy.

A beginner’s lesson teaches you the very basics, in the whitewash: put your hands here, look behind you for the wave, three strong paddle strokes and then pop up on your board and look where you want to go, cover your head under the water when you bail. I did that, and caught lots of waves. Stoked! I was on my way.

I borrowed my neighbour’s board, a foam surfboard, recommended for beginners because of the buoyancy and lowered risk of being knocked out by a scone on the dome.

I strode out with confidence past the Maranui Surf Club. In the next two hours, I caught approximately one and a half waves. I got water and sand in my eyes, nose, mouth, and hair. My leg rope fell off. I didn’t know which way was up. A young child zoomed past on his boogie board.

Before I started surfing, all I noticed at the beach was whether the tide was in or out, or if it was particularly stormy. Now I know the ocean has moods, that its floor has curves, that waves are always surprising and that they change depending on where in the bay you surf, the wind, or the day.

I have learned this by going out all the time, every time there are waves and I’m not working or can get away from the kids.

For a few months, I stuck to the whitewash. But I envied the surfers beyond, effortlessly dropping into a smooth surface, carving out their place.

I Google and find out if you catch a wave before it's broken, that’s called a green wave. I watch a bunch of YouTube videos. The first time I try to get out past the break it is terrifying, exhausting, and takes me about 20 minutes. Once there I can’t paddle on to any of the waves, or they break as I am trying to catch them and I get pummelled, nosediving into the deep.

This happens many times. This still happens. But at some point, in between messaging a friend in Raglan, who is also learning to surf, going out, watching more videos, going out, joining a group of Lyall Bay women surfers, the Gurfers, and going out again, I start to learn how the waves work.

And even when I don’t, on the days they don’t seem to like me, or they can’t be bothered forming, or they are a mess, or come rushing in too fast, baring their teeth, it doesn’t matter. I am on my own in the ocean, practising pop-ups in the whitewash or being smashed doing something stupid at a key moment, having the time of my life.

And sometimes I just sit, hands trailing in the water, eyes on the horizon, watching the swells coming in and aware of nothing and everything, breath rising and falling in time with the sea.

Afterwards I feel rinsed, standing in the shower with rivulets of water running down my body, washing off the salt. I have been immersed, I’ve used every muscle, and I’m tired and most of all, I’m so happy. Happiness isn’t a state that’s easy to get to, but surfing gets me there every time. I had hoped it would be like this, and it is. It is.