When Cool Cats Become Kool Katz

2/10/10: Byron Bay, Australia

When deciding what surf school we should sign up for, we used Google’s latest and greatest invention: Google blogsearch. (Who knows if it’s actually latest – Google puts out so much new crap that I can’t wait to start working for them when we return to the States in the fall. Did you hear that Google? Leave a spot open for me!) Through blogsearch we were able to find detailed reviews of many different surf schools that we weren’t able to find out through our usual favorite website, tripadvisor.com. So in yet another attempt to be like Kevin Spacey, we’ve decided to Pay It Forward today and offer our two cents on the Kool Katz Learn to Surf School.

(Today’s “It’s a Small World After All” note: one blog we found linked us to another person’s reviews of surfing in Hawaii. The other person turned out to be my cousin, Brenda!)

The Good: If you’re looking to have a good time and those graffiti phone numbers in sketchy bathroom stalls just aren’t cutting it for you, go surfing. Surfing to me is like golf. Besides the fact that you spend most of your time in the sand and in the water, the reason you keep coming back is to catch that one big wave. You spend all day waiting around taking mulligans and getting hit into by the obnoxious foursome behind you, but when you hit that fantastic shot it’s the best feeling in the world. Surfing and golf are both “nicotine sports” – once you start, it’s really hard to stop.

The Bad: What does anything I just said have to do with Kool Katz? Nothing. This surf school was more of a do-it-yourself course, as there was very minimal teaching. Our best teacher over the three days was a man who looked old enough to have invented surfing. He knew his stuff, but unfortunately he now he smokes five packs of waves per day, so rather than teach he preferred to catch the waves himself. He was constantly washed up ashore (perhaps playing Bingo?) while the rest of us were left to fend for ourselves.

The Good: The other two teachers were cool guys. It was fun hanging out with a couple young surfer bums; in fact it’s kind of contagious. There were brief moments where I wanted to quit everything, live on someone’s couch for the rest of my life and ride the waves every day. When there’s nothing more to life than spending as much time as possible on the ocean, there’s really never anything to worry about.

The Bad: The head of the school, the “Steve Irwin of Learn to Surf,” was as close to a robot as any person I’ve ever met. He clearly drinks too much salt water, as there seems to be nothing more to him than his impressive repertoire of one-liners. Some examples:

“For those of you who want rashies, go ahead, and for those who wants wet suits we have those too, because that’s the kind of dudes we are.”
“The best day of your life may be behind you, but at least you’ll always have the memories.”
“As we say every day, thanks for coming, we hoped in some small way we touched your heart.”

The Conclusion: This is the cheapest surf school in New South Wales for a reason. If you’re intent on spending more than just a couple days surfing, spend the extra money and go get some real lessons. However, if you just want to have some fun in the water with a bunch of other beginners, this might actually be the surf school for you. Zhou and I had a ton of fun, but in no way shape or form did we really learn how to surf. Rating: B-.

…

When we returned to Cape Byron Lodge to make lunch, we were greeted by perhaps the most disheartening sight of this trip to date: someone had stolen two of our last four pieces of bread. I know this doesn’t seem like a lot, but seriously, who does that? It made me angrier than the time someone stole $100 from my backpack, because in that case I should’ve been keeping a closer watch on the money. Here, I never would have thought I needed to lock up our cheap white bread. (It was tucked away in a bag containing all our other food as well, and the bag was clearly labeled “Kevin Curry.”) I guess it’s the small things that really bug me…
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Pictures of the Day: I am a huge sucker for sunsets, and Byron Bay delivered.

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At Least We’re Mediocre Together

2/9/10: Byron Bay, Australia

Having been in a relationship with Kevin for the last five years now, I’ve come to learn many things about him. He drools in his sleep, he is terrified of oranges, and for twenty years of his life, he didn’t know that pickles are cucumbers. But then again, for twenty years of my life, I thought cilantro was parsley and parsley was nameless. So you see, we’re perfect for each other.

But the one thing that I’ve learned about him that I am still having trouble getting used to, being the hyper-competitive person that I am, is that Kevin is better than me at pretty much every game or sport that exists. Golf, arm wrestling, poker, Boggle, Scrabble (yes, he is better than me at Scrabble, I admit it!), ice skating, roller hockey, chess – you name it, he’s better at it. Let’s take field hockey for example. I played field hockey in high school, and Kevin has never played it in his life, but give him a field hockey stick and throw a skirt on him and he’d be out there kicking my butt in a game of two-person field hockey (if there were such a thing as two-person field hockey). And sure, there are things that I’m better at than Kevin – taking naps, shopping, eating fruit, chopping vegetables – but they’re not exactly things you can brag about. Ok, maybe I could brag about the napping thing, because I am a WORLD-CHAMPION napper, but not about the other stuff.

So our first surfing experience was a nice little ego boost. I won’t say that I laughed at Kevin during our surfing lesson yesterday, because that would be mean, and I’m not a mean person – but I can’t honestly admit that I wasn’t a teensy (eensy) bit satisfied that there was something – finally! – that I could be better at than Kevin.

Unfortunately it didn’t last too long. Our second surfing lesson started off rather inauspiciously today with me putting on a wetsuit inside out. (In my defense, Kevin zipped it up the back and didn’t know it was inside out either.) This was pretty embarrassing, especially since everyone else managed to put on their wetsuit properly.

Me modeling my slightly too big wetsuit. Looks like I should have stuck with the pterodactyl-arms rash vest.

We then took to the water, where Eric, one of our instructors, chastised me for going after “a crappy wave. If you’re going to spend all that energy getting out here, spend a few more minutes and wait for the right wave.” Which is super advice – and I would definitely would have put that advice to good use immediately, if only I could tell the difference between a crap wave and the right wave.

A little while later, Mike, another one of our instructors, had us paddle to some deeper water so the group wouldn’t be so crowded in one section. A bunch of us set off toward the other side of the beach, and I paddled (with great energy, I might add) in the same direction, watching as everyone slowly got further and further out in front of me. Mike, who was paddling with the group out in front, paddled back to me and said, “You are the worst paddler I have ever seen.”

And then he looked behind me and saw Kevin bringing up the rear of our group. “But he’s not much better.”

Words to live by.
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Picture of the Day: A Byron Bay sunset.

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Surfing School on Super Bowl Sunday

2/8/10: Byron Bay, Australia

Kool Katz Learn to Surf School exclusive guarantee: “Stand and ride a wave for 40 metres or your money back!”

How could we possibly pass up a name like Kool Katz offering a Namathian guarantee like that?

Zhou and I in our “rashies” ready to surf!

This morning about a dozen of us and one crazy psycho boarded two vans for the beach. No, the crazy psycho was not the surf instructor, although he was quite crazy. (He claims others dubbed him “the Steve Irwin of learn-to-surf” although I’m guessing he gave himself that nickname.) The 250 pound chain smoking 51-year old lady who would only talk about how we might get kidnapped or get our arms cut off if we stayed too long in Sydney – she was the one I’d keep my kids away from if I had any. Thankfully she decided she had a stomach ache and didn’t go out on the water with any of us.

After a 20 minute spiel on safety and the basics of standing up, we hit the waves (a bit of foreshadowing there). To start we would lie face down on our boards and the instructor would push us off with the wave. My first run began quite promising, as I stood up with no problem and surprisingly rode the wave a short way toward the shore. After about ten meters though, I realized the wave was traveling much quicker than I, and as soon I tried to lean forward to catch back up I lost my balance and crashed into the water. I hopped up quickly to look cool in front of the others, and CONK! – the board crashed squarely into my forehead.

I woke up in the hospital some unknown time later with a large knot on my… Just kidding. The board hurt, but I’m tougher than Mark Mcgwire’s left butt cheek so I shook it off. As it turns out, my time would have been spent more productively unconscious in an emergency room. I didn’t catch another decent wave for the entire lesson.

But that’s only one side of the story. My wife, on the other hand, turned out to be the star of the class. Every time I looked up she was standing on her board looking like the next Kelly Slater. I remember one run in particular where I saw her catch a wave and ride it for 20 meters or so. I was quite inspired to catch one of my own, so in what turned out to be one of my better runs of the day, I didn’t crash for at least four seconds. When I regained my bearings, I looked off in the distance and saw Zhou still riding her wave. It was at this point that she saw me, so you know what she did? She waved (no pun intended). She was so good that she didn’t need to watch the water in front of her, but instead could scan the distance for a mangled body struggling for breath and then wave at that person. I’m pretty sure after this Matt Stover missed a field goal, Peyton Manning threw an interception, twelve cars were burned on the streets of New Orleans and then Zhou finished her ride. It was funny because after the lesson she kept complaining to me how long it always took her to get back to catch another wave. No duh! Michael Phelps couldn’t swim that distance in under 15 minutes! Needless to say, I was quite impressed. Did you notice that I called Zhou my wife at the beginning? I had to take ownership of such a good surfer.

While Zhou was busy actually surfing, I was slowly becoming the master of the “I just stood up on the board but now the wave is way closer to shore than I am so that was a pointless waste, but at least I’m on the board, but shoot I’m not going anywhere now so I guess I’ll just lean backward and fall into the water” face. It’s surprisingly similar to the face defenders get when they’re guarding Lebron closer than Joey from Friends guards a ham sandwich, yet Lebron still nails a 32-footer on three consecutive possessions because he’s a basketball god and he does what he wants.

Can you believe that last paragraph was only two sentences?

Anyway, at the end of the day, I had an absolute blast not going anywhere, and Zhou had so much fun that she can’t wait to get back to Sydney where we can surf on our own. However, don’t think I didn’t forget about the guarantee. Kool Katz, I want my money back.
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Pictures of the Day: These pictures before sunset seem like a good analogy to our day of surfing: Zhou = rainbows, Kevin = dark clouds.

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