Summer's a-comin!

Ha haaaaaaa! At last, monsoon season seems to have ended, and the sun is putting in more than just the occasional cameo. Even better, it's been quite warm for the last few days, and we've been feeling strangely streamlined without our bulky jerseys and gumboots. The weather shift is fortuitously timed, as Kiwis ignore the whole equinox/actual position of the earth's axis thing in favor of declaring their very own first day of spring - in this case, the first of September.

On a side note, we've also learned that they like to play it fast and loose with the concept of daylight savings time here. Last year, some concerned young Kiwi blokes decided we just weren't getting enough daytime hours to see us through the gloomy wet winter. So they put a petition together, got enough signatures in like a day, the government said, "Oh sure." and hey presto: we have three more weeks of daylight savings. Small government does have its occasional rewards.

At any rate, still more indicative of the change of season than a lack of layers, is that we actually put in for our first surf of the season yesterday - beating our last year's start date by a good ten weeks. The reason for such aquatic alacrity is this: previously, we were possessed of only Surfy, our bright red, garage-door-sized, foam-topped wonderboard. While we still love Surfy, we decided to add to our wave-slider collection for the simple reason that we would like to go out surfing together. We actually share our toys with one another quite well, but it gets a bit lonesome whether you're parked on the sand or out in the water. SOOOOOO, last week we scored not one, but two great used surfboards (as yet known only as "your board" and "my board").

Chad's (new best friend) is a 7' 3" Australian-made fish cut:


and mine is a 7' 6" double-stringer Kiwi born-and-bred mini-mal:

I'm cleaning stray bits of wax off the underside with an old Subway customer loyalty card (not cuddling with it or anything), in case you were wondering.

Now having entered the world of fiberglass boards, we are also the proud owners of our first bar of surf wax. Smells coconutty.... mmmmm....but (according to the box) do not eat! Because, you know, I might have been considering it otherwise.

So yeah, we're pretty excited. It seems a little surreal that we're looking forward to our THIRD summer here, but really, it just sucks you in!

Isa 42:10 Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants.

The End. (get it? ;)