So when Kevin asks me to this Friday evening, the same story is about to reach my lips, yet the pull of summers in San Diego takes over me, and I tell him I'll go. We head down to George's, where the water is completely flat, and there are actually no surfers and only a few scattered paddle boarders anywhere near us. While standing on the beach, each of us with a board under our arm, Kevin tells me how to lift my chest up off the board and push the board down when a wave is coming head on. I trepidly walk into the water, holding the surfboard at a ridiculous sideways angle over my shoulder so as not....to get it wet. I continue holding it over my shoulder until Kevin looks over and tells me to put it in the water, which I do. About 10 steps later, my anxiety is climbing and I stop. I am looking everywhere for fish (nasty things), and the waves, all 1 feet of them, are crashing into me and pushing me back towards the beach. Obviously, God wants me to stay on land, and who am I to argue? I tell Kevin I don't want to do this anymore, and head back for the beach. He returns with me and proceeds to give me a 5 minute pep talk about how I should just try it, that he thinks I'll like it once we get past the break, blah blah blah.
This time, with anxiety running high but determined to get out there, I walk into the water as far as I can go until Kev tells me to get on the board. And I start paddling. And paddling. And paddling. Oh for Pete's sake, am I ever going to get anywhere? And then there is a monstrous humongous gigantic towering 3 foot wave in front of me, and I panic and Kevin tells me to lift my chest off the board, and I do, and eventually we are past the break and I've made it! And then I think "Shark!". I scan the water. And continue to scan. It is calm and quiet and really quite pretty, when the sun isn't in my eyes getting in the way of sighting the great white shark that I am sure is lurking somewhere near me. Still scanning....scanning...and then I look up and 20 feet away from me are 2 dark fins coming straight at me, fast. They are pointy and look exactly like what you see in shark attacks in the movies. I scream - and I'm not talking some girly yelp, I'm talking a guttural, carnal, I-am-about-to-die scream - and I am trying to turn the board around and stay on it and not let my feet dangle in the water in case the sharks try to grab them. I am terrorized, and I am slow in this water and on this board, and I see Kevin out of the corner of my eye, and he is looking straight at me. "Morgan, Morgan, they're dolphins, it's dolphins, it's ok, it's just dolphins". I look over at my impending death, and a dolphin jumps out of the water, playing in the waves. It is huge. It could probably eat me. Or at least land on me and make me go unconscious and I would drown. A lone paddle boarder is watching and laughing at me. I start to cry.
Kevin leads me out of the water, staying right next to me, holding on to my board as I cry and paddle back to shore. We walk on to the beach, where he gives me one of his curious, is-it-ok-to-laugh-about-this-now looks. I stop crying and we both laugh for a good 10 minutes, then get in the car and go home.
Effing dolphin sharks.
