Last week, the surf at The Shores, at least in my surf world, was pretty darn good.

The paddle-out was not a lot of fun, in fact my offer of paying someone, anyone, the big $$ just to paddle my board out and leave it far outside the lineup went untaken.

Anyway, I finally did make it out [far south of the lifeguard tower] and as I paddled north towards Outside Emmett's, I passed more than one longboard surfer.

Luckily for me, if the waves at The Shores even approach a few feet overhead, most of the longboarders [JALs (Just Another Longboarder)] who surf there [The Shores] don't make the trek to the fun area in front of The White House - whew -

However, since my trek thru Archie's to The White House started south of The Tower, I had to paddle through a number of JALs. 

A pretty decent wave came thru and one of the JALs paddled kindda half-ass for the wave - no success in catching the wave.

I was in a pretty good mood [for me] that day, so rather than call the JAL a ****** or ****, I offered a friendly bit of advice: "Dude, you gotta paddle like you want to catch the wave." 

The JAL's response: "I was really ambivalent about that wave."  

I didn't know what he meant by ambivalent, so I just kept on paddling north.

I waited until I got to work later that day, and Googled ambivalent:

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Anyway, I began to think - ouch - about the 2 sentence conversation earlier in the day.

I thought:  how could anyone be ambivalent about the surf that day, or even more puzzling to me, was why would anyone be ambivalent about most things in life?

I won't bore myself with my musings about my life's lesson learned, but I just gotta say, if one is riding a longboard, with a leash, you are taking up a radius in the lineup of close to 20 feet [10 feet of surfboard + 10 feet of leash].

My suggestion:

When the waves are challenging at The Shores, please take your 20 feet of ambivalence and find a place where you can surf with like minded friends, and please stay out of surfing areas where those in the water always want to improve their surfing skills - meaning every wave one catches has a purpose, and finding that purpose will help you to get better, stronger, and more skilled in the lineup.

BA