Surfing

- Return ("round-trip" in Australian) ferry tickets to Manly: AU$13
- Snacks and bottle of water: AU$8
- Surfing "lesson": AU$60
- Two beers to sooth the pain: $AU15

To answer everyone's question, no I did not manage to stand up.

I was pretty much an abject failure at my first attempt at surfing. I would have been better served to throw myself down a flight of stairs while drinking a bucket of seawater. I would have felt the same after, but at least I wouldn't have spent the 60 bucks.

There was a lot of wind and the waves were quite big, about six foot breakers. Which is all well and good for people who know how to surf, not for a bunch of n00bs who keep getting pushed back and knocked over by the waves. Being freak sized, they gave me a small canoe for a board, which also didn't help. Finally, there were about 12 of us to two teachers, so the sum total of instruction I got all afternoon was "don't get pulled away by the current" and "paddle forward and try to jump on the board."

Needless to say, not many people were successful in this beginners surfing class, let alone the goofy, un-coordinated 6'5" Asian man who can barely swim. At one point, my dogged stubbornness was forcing me to drag the giant pontoon across the beach, pushing out about 25 feet into the waves, getting knocked over and dragged by the current down the beach and towards the shore, getting up and repeating. How is this supposed to be fun now?

Lesson learned: Mother Nature is a bitch. And if she tells you you're not supposed to surf, you're not supposed to surf.