Women on Board: In Fla., Finding Their Inner Gidget

We are all of us, silently, sharing the same thing: the warmth of the water and the sun, the huge beautiful ocean, the quiet. We watch rainbows -- the mist that evanesces off the tops of tumbling waves, catching sunlight for a few seconds in a pulse of color. Can't see that from the beach -- only from Outside.

There's an extraordinary tunnel vision to being in the surf, whether trying to ride it or just to keep from getting knocked over -- "poundage," Celeste calls that. The tunnel vision erases everything: other people, other waves, all self-consciousness. The Outside, by contrast, is a gentle, contemplative space where I am able to ponder the question -- the only question -- will I stand up on my board before the weekend is over?

So I try it again. And again. The roar, the rush, the wipeout. I tumble over and bounce around underwater like dice in a cup.

I surface with my arms above my head, the way I've been taught, to protect me from colliding with the board. A guy walks by laughing and calls to Celeste, "Bless you! Someone's got to teach them."

Back on the beach with the other girls, we are all smiles. We talk about the cleansing goodness of having our sinuses repeatedly flushed, and compare underwater experiences. The sharing is a great salve for our sore shoulders and knees -- the camaraderie of clutzy surfer-newbies.

We laugh at ourselves, but Celeste never laughs at us. Never.

When the joking and talking fall quiet, I look into my friends' faces as they gaze out at the surf.They look sober and stoic, mixed with wistful, longing, a little weary. Each of us -- women in our thirties and forties, all with complicated lives we've left behind -- has her own thoughts, staring out at the water. Out there, in the poundage, we are experiencing something we have to work out for ourselves.

When we arrived we all had questions, of course, about predators. Only one of us had the courage to speak up. "I gotta ask," said Kathy, "about sharks?"

"There's never any sharks here," Celeste said. "Never see sharks. Never. Never ever. No sharks around here, ever. Right, Laura?"

"Yeah," said Laura. "Never see sharks. Maybe, in the last year, well, in the last six months -- this summer -- seen maybe one. Seen one. Maybe two."

"We never see sharks," said Celeste.

"If we do see a shark, don't you worry, we'll be out of the water. We get out, just like that, right away. Get right out, don't we?"