Missing a Surfer

A red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight. A red sky in the morning is a shepherd’s warning. It was actually a pale blue Irish sky that stellar morning last summer, for a change, but we should’ve heeded its warning anyway.

“Not bad,” Luke said while nodding his head, causing his mass of tightly bound brown curls to bounce up and down. “Not bad at all.”

He was examining the cascading waves rolling onto the beach, analysing their suitability for his morning surf. He grabbed his notorious yellow and green surfboard, plunging it into the sand beside him and leaned against it. Daniel was the next to get out of the minivan. He, too, removed his own blue surfboard off the roof of the van, setting it in the sand like Luke, only less forcefully. Shawna and I followed, untying our own surfboards. Shawna’s was pink and orange, a longboard like Luke’s, and I was borrowing Daniel’s brother Alex’s old surfboard which was red.

I breathed in a lungful of air through my nose. The air had a salty tang to it as it blew off the ocean. Little white caps broke not more than twenty feet out and then rushed to meet the shore. Above me, seagulls screeched and circled in a cloudless sky.

“Let’s go then,” Daniel said enthusiastically, sprinting towards the twinkling waves which were glinting with delight as the sun began to make its way over the horizon. Luke grinned like a child on Christmas morning and followed behind, catching up with just a few of his long strides.

“He’s going to get a bit of a surprise,” I muttered quietly, putting Alex’s surfboard under my arm.

“What do you mean?” Shawna asked curiously, tying her long, dark hair in a ponytail.

I didn’t mention that she would probably get a surprise too and watched as Daniel dived headfirst into the waves.

Luke, Daniel and Shawna had flown over from California the previous day. Daniel was visiting his family here in Ireland who he hadn’t seen since Christmas as he had moved to the USA the preceding year. His two American friends had decided to join him. It was an energising feeling to have friends come after so much time apart, but no jetlag or fatigue was going to stop these three surfers from missing their morning surf, no matter what country they were in. I was glad to see my friends, especially Dan, who I'd grown up with. Who would've thought someone like me would be missing a surfer.

A yell interrupted my train of thought. As Daniel and I had predicted, Luke had dived straight into the water. He came up with his hair no longer in taut coils, but dripping droplets of water down the back of his neck.

Daniel burst out laughing as he resurfaced, holding his ribs as he shook with uncontrollable laughter. I joined in, saving the memory of his facial expression in my mind forever.

“It’s freezing!” Luke cried.

“I hate to say I told you so,” Daniel replied, patting him on the shoulder. It was quite a stretch. Daniel chuckled again as he swam further out to sea. As he was born in Northern Ireland, he was used to the chilling waters where he first learned to surf, but poor Luke had no idea.

“Dan, when you said the water was colder than it is in California, I didn’t think you meant –“

I stopped listening as I caught Shawna’s frown from the corner of my eye. Her brow was creased with indecision but a moment later, she lunged herself into the water. I smiled; I should’ve known better. Shawna was not the kind of girl that gave into hesitations and she had, therefore, persisted with determination before she had any time to give in to them at all.

The thoughts racing through her mind as she emerged were clearer than reading an open book. The shock on her face!

“Come on!” Daniel yelled over to me. I slowly but steadily walked into the water, wincing slightly at the temperature of the icy water, but otherwise quite unaffected. Now I was nervous. I had never surfed before. Bodyboarding, definitely, but never surfing. I wasn’t sure if I’d have the balance my friends had so naturally.