Boogie Boarding rocks my world / kicks my ass (multiple times)

I spent Canada Day 2006 on Ecuador's northern coast in the beach town of Atacames. No worries Sara, festivities were not forgotten. Thanks to Valeria, myself and 3 other friends (including one very cooperative American) were well decorated with Canadian flags and maple leaf tatoos. The weather wasn't that fantastic, pretty overcast, I guess due to the season here, but that didn't stop us from hitting the beach. Anyone who knows me will know that I am not one to dive into the water, but thankfully the water here was quite warm.

We started the weekend off with, surprise surprise, the England-Portugal game.... a little beach time, then the France-Brazil game in the afternoon. When we finally got the obligatory soccer watching out of the way we were really able to take advantage of the beach. I have never been surfing, nor do I really feel that comfortable in the ocean (I feel like I am going to be dragged away), so body surfing was a terrific place to start... and HECK was it fun!!

I don't know why, but saturdays waves were more gentle on me... I guess a kind introduction. The first wave was amazing. My friend Julie and I were both waiting to take it. Then all of a sudden I am up on top of the wave and I look down to see Julie looking up at me a metre and a half above her. Moments later I glide smoothly (though without control) into the beach while Julie got beaten down by the wave Blue Crush style (according to Julie)... it was really quite hilarious. The rest of the day went fairly well, in fact, zero salt water inhaled. Sunday however was a different story. I got worked by the waves time after time, my throat was burning I had inhaled so much dirty, salty (and probably petrol-y) water.

All in all it was a very fun Canada day weekend. Happy Canada day.