Wave-lovin’ dudes make the beach their home
LA UNION—Distance? Heat? Nothing’s going to stop these beach lovers from paddling out into the sea for a little surfing action. For 22-year-old Allen Munar, who in virtually his entire life woke up to the sound of rushing waves in San Juan town here, nothing beats a short walk to the beach to ride the crest of the wave. “Every weekends, I come here (to the beach) with my friends and cousins,” said Munar, who spent his long weekend in the La Union Surfing Break 5 annually held at Urbiztondo beach. “A lot of people who come here are encouraged to try surfing and they start regularly coming back to this place,” he added. Take 24-year-old Aaron Vitug, for instance. He doesn’t have the luxury of a short walk to the beach. In fact, he has to endure a bottom-numbing, six-hour drive to get here just so he can toss his six-foot board to the waters and start hanging loose. “La Union is actually the nearest place we can go, but we don’t mind because it’s really fun,” said Vitug, a nurse at a prestigious hospital in Taguig who troops up north every three months—or when he gets “double days off”—just to ride the waves. Vitug and his friends, who started surfing March last year, got hooked on the popular water sport only after looking for something to satisfy their penchant for adventure. “We wanted to try something new when we visit the beaches, and someone introduced us to surfing,” added Vitug. Munar on the other hand originally started out skateboarding before finally heeding the call of neighboring waves. “I wanted to try all board sports and when I tried surfing and skim boarding, I liked it better,” said Munar. Compared to skateboarding, where you risk gashes and bruises landing in the cold, coarse cement, the sea serves as a cushion to every wipeout in surfing. “It’s less risky because you have the water to catch you,” Munar added. But that doesn’t mean the two avoided injuries while skimming on the waters. Munar suffered a wrist injury when he went on a skewed landing while Vitug twisted an ankle and also hurt his knee in the process of skim boarding, a type of surfing on flat waves by the shore. The long-haired Munar, who is ironically a chain smoker, believes that stamina and balance to to avoid accidents and stave off the sharp-edged coral reefs and rock formations. “The foundation of balance should be there,” Munar said. “It’s easy to learn to surf when you’re devoted to learning,” he added. “I started with the basic elements, it’s hard to paddle on your own because you also have to catch the waves,” Vitug explained. “You will really need an instructor.” “When you’re still a beginner, start with the small waves before taking on the big ones,” added Vitug, who laughingly shared that five feet is the highest wave he has conquered. And while the learning process took several falls and redo’s, getting the eventual hang of it left Vitug wanting it more. “Once I ride a wave, the feeling is different, especially now that I do it on my own. I feel like I’m floating,” Vitug said.
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