This past weekend—August 1^st & 2^nd 2008—Outpost 106 Adventure Rangers had our Second Annual Surfing Overnight . It was a great time! Click here to view pictures.

The weekend started with an Overnight/Lock-In in the Church’s Learning Center. 13 boys wandered in somewhere between 5pm and 6pm, the last two showing up just before 8pm (Ms Santa’s oldest was at his 13^th birthday party and had to come late). The boys’ ages ranged from 10 years old up to senior in high school. Out of six commanders who had signed up to be there, four had to work. That left me and Cdr Larry, and he would be late. Earlier that day, I had Rudy, one of the church maintenance guys, cut me some four-foot one by six boards and as the boys got there, I let them try to balance on a 2-liter soda bottle, my home-made version of an Indo board. Most of them took right to it, some eating or drinking to show off. Some went flying. I'll leave it to your imagination what happened when I tried. I prefer to say I always want boys to learn from the benefit of my failures.

Once most of the boys had arrived, yet while still waiting for Cdr Larry to get there, we went outside and sat in the patio where I went over surfing safety and surfer etiquette while boys tried real hard to seem interested. I reassured them that there was no realistic possibility they would be bitten by a shark, stung by jellyfish, or skewered by stingrays. And as long as they didn't try to catch a crab, no crab was going to bite them.

We had a copy of Andy Irons "Learn to Surf" video (rented from Netflix) which I started up, thinking kids might rather watch that than hear me drone on, but instead the boys played and visited, so I asked and none of them really cared if I turned it off. So we went into surfboard practice. Boys practice lying down on a board, paddling, foot placement, their style, and soon got bored.

So we tried to order pizza. I had one of the high school boys call Costco to place an order for 8 pizzas. He was told by the Costco employee they refused to take an order that large over the phone, reason being there had been two fake orders placed already that day; we needed to come in and pay first. So, long story short, Mrs. Cdr Jeff had to go up and get pizzas. We went outside and played Capture the Flag until she arrived. The boys ate at about 9:00pm. After that they played dark games in the basement until about 1:30am when I finally convinced them they needed to sleep if they were going to learn to surf in the morning.

At about 2am, most of the boys were still up and had their PSPs on. Seems the church has a wireless router in the building with an unsecure network. The boys were on-line playing games against each other and were loud enough to wake me. I asked them to put them away, giving them a few minutes to save or log-off or what-ever. All got quite again and I dozed off again. At about 2:30, the noise woke me again. I told the boys to get up and we all went outside and sat. I told them to go ahead and visit. I took a Bible and started reading about King David. The boys seemed to think I was punishing them and just sat there. I reassured them they were not in trouble, I just didn’t want them talking while others were trying to sleep. We talked about horror movies (something I hate) and I have no idea what else. After about ten minutes I sent the really sleepy ones back inside. About 3am, we all went back in. I fell back asleep. At 6:10am, Cdr Larry was waking me.

So after microwaving and then feeding boys frozen waffles and breakfast croissants and cold cereal, we got the boys and our beach gear loaded into three vehicles. Cdr George arrived just in time for us to leave and we headed to Coronado beach. Most people go to Coronado beach and park in the large parking lot just south of the Hotel Del. Few people know about the tiny city parking lot with about 100 free unmetered spaces between the Coronado Shores condos found at the end of Avenida de las Arenas. The public beach dead-ends into restricted off limits Navy property about 1000 yards to the South. The slope into the water is very gradual right there. When the tide is all the way out, the beach is about seventy-five feet wide, when the tide is all the way in, it’s about 25 feet.

It was a wonderful day for surfing! Mid Seventies, the water was just about 72 degrees, the tide had turned at about 5am, there was a nice off-shore breeze WNW of about 5mph, swells were between 2 and 4 feet, a bit of marine layer so it never got too sunny.

We pulled into the parking lot and were met right away by Cdr Mike’s brother, Roger who told us he and a friend, Rob, were already there. I cannot tell you how proud I am everywhere we go with Royal Rangers boys. None of them ran off or started bickering or tried to get out of work. They were all standing there eagerly waiting for Cdr Larry and I to direct them. Thirteen kids all on the edge of becoming men, but today all swim trunks and smiles. The boys got all our gear and walked to the end of the parking lot. There the sea wall stands a good twelve feet high, a ramp leads to the sidewalk on top, a slow walk until their eyes got high enough to see what we came for. In moments the boys were on the sand and looking at ten surfboards they had waiting for us to use.

Some of the boys wanted to just get in the water. Between us we had one more surfboard and about ten boogie boards. I asked all the boys to at least attempt to learn to surf. Cdr Mike got there and so did Cdr Rick. We now had six teachers in the water with Cdr Larry on beach duty, as per our 8 rules for water safety. Before long, several of the boys asked if they could switch to boogie boards, all had taken a surfboard and had tried (some succeeding) to stand up. So I said okay, cautioning them to stay clear of the surfing area so they wouldn’t get konked by a loose board. Mrs Cdr Jeff and Mrs Cdr Mike showed up for a while, brought some snacks, and took some pictures. Several of the boys were doing okay on their own, some were still in need of help. Soon it was clear who was now a surfer. Roger and his friend Rob left at about noon and took four of their ten boards with them.

By the end of the day, when we left the beach, six boys had learned to surf and could stand up confidently riding the waves. Three others had already been able and showed their style at least once. Four boys just had a fun day at the beach. Just like Cdr Jeff; after about ten minutes of not being able to stand my out-of-shape self up, I swapped my surfboard for a boogie board and joined Cdr Rick way out in the heavy surf.

What a great day! Be sure to check out the pictures! We gathered up our stuff, picked up the beach, got back in our vehicles and returned to the church. There we polished off the remaining pizza and waited for parents. Can’t wait to do this again next year!

On September 3^rd we start up our new year.

Our next event is the Coronado Beach Hike on September 13^th. We have our Fall Sectional Campout on 26^th-28^th. I’ll keep you updated.