Week Twenty One
All At Sea
Eric sits on his board, holds his sunburnt hand to his forehead in a salute, and looks out toward the horizon.
"Nothing coming," he says.
"Wind died down. Might be the end of the swells today," I respond in an attempt to use my best 'surfer' lingo.
Our boards bob over the shallow ocean waves, and we turn back to the beach and instinctively let the mild surf push us back toward shore. Dad is there to greet us, asks us how our rides were, and suggests coming back early tomorrow when the winds might pick up a bit. We grab our gear off the beach, feel the crust of drying salt water begin to form on our arms and legs, and head toward the house nestled in the dunes.
It had been firmly established that our family would vacation on the Outerbanks for two weeks each summer. It was no longer a question of where we were going, but when. Over the years, we watched as small beach huts were transformed to mansions on stilts. We saw dunes removed to make way for housing developments. And with the closest grocery store just a five minute drive down the road - a nice change from the 45 minute drive we used to have - we saw society creeping in on this small section of secluded paradise.
We didn't set out to be a surfing family. Coming from Connecticut and the flat expanse of Long Island Sound, we were better prepared to be a family who sailed, played golf, or went horseback riding. But once we caught sight of the double surf break off Currituck Beach in Corolla, all four of us knew what our collective family goal would be.
Cheap foam boogie boards gave way to slick-bottom boogie boards. From there, the roof rack on our family's car began sporting longboards, shortboards, and everything in between as we made the 12 hour trip down the east coast to North Carolina.
The days were spent in the waves, and our nights were spent feeling the rise and fall of the sea that'd been imprinted on our inner-ears all day long. But truly, what made these halcyon days so incredible wasn't the ocean. It wasn't the sun. It was that we were out there as family. My brother, my father, me, and, although she didn't surf, my mom who would swim out to the surf break and watch as we caught wave after wave.
While perched on our boards, we congratulated each other on rides. We spoke mythically about that one wave we took, or that one wave we missed. We remarked excitedly as dolphin traced parabolas in the distance. And when a swell would come in, all talk would cease as our family had one single goal: catch the biggest wave and ride it over the double break onto the beach.
We weren't a family that spent their summers poolside at a country club. We weren't a family that traveled from state to state singing in a band together. We were a family, that for two weeks every summer, surfed.
