{"id":20017,"date":"2015-11-24T15:09:51","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T22:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/?p=20017"},"modified":"2025-12-26T08:54:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T14:54:05","slug":"a-truly-life-altering-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/a-truly-life-altering-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"“A Truly Life-Altering Experience”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Keara<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

February 2013. I\u2019m 30,000 feet in the air, on my way to Tamarindo for the first time. I\u2019m totally by myself, my friends either at home with little ones or not up for the adventure ahead of me. My divorce has been final for one week. I have never felt so alone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the other end of that flight awaits an adventure that I\u2019ve promised myself for years. I had always wanted to learn to surf, but for a thousand excuses, I had never taken the plunge. But here I was, just an hour away from a week learning to surf and my head swimming with questions. What if I hated surfing? What if I got lonely? What if I couldn\u2019t get the hang of it? What on earth was I doing?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Little did I know what a special place was awaiting me. Five minutes after arriving at WRSC, I was sitting at a table with 8 other people, sharing a pitcher of Imperial and a plate of nachos (yes, as big as my a$$). Lonely? Not a chance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next morning, I had my first surf lesson, a truly life-altering experience. Under the guidance of my fantastic instructor, I popped up and rode my first wave just minutes after getting in the water. All fear, gone. All anxiety, poof. That\u2019s what surfing does to you. It makes you smile so hard your face hurts. It makes you pop up after an epic ride or an epic wipe out (it doesn\u2019t matter which), laughing and paddling back out into the waves to do it again.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And when I wasn\u2019t experiencing the joy of riding a wave or the peace of bobbing around, awaiting the next wave as the sun rises over camp, I was laughing. Oh my gosh, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever laughed so much. We were \u2013 we are \u2013 a motley crew, my WRSC family. From the US, Canada, Russia, we were doctors and PR pros and physical therapists and even a peace officer (to this day, I\u2019m not sure what that really means). But oh we laughed. Amid the truly spectacular backdrop of WRSC \u2013 with its staff poised to help us with any request and its waves ready to draw us back into the ocean over and over again \u2013 surfing buddies became lifelong friends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Afterwards, I wondered if perhaps it was the magic of the people I met that week, some wormhole that I fell into by picking that specific week in that particular year. But 9 months later, I was back at WRSC. Different week. Different people. Same amazing experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My crew of friends returns to WRSC every February now \u2013 to surf, laugh, drink a little more Imperial, and eat a few more nachos. This February will be my fourth trip \u201chome.\u201d Because yes, that is what WRSC became for me after just one week of surfing. Home. I can\u2019t wait to get back there.<\/p>\n

Erika Tower<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 February 2013. I\u2019m 30,000 feet in the air, on my way to Tamarindo for the first time. I\u2019m totally by myself, my friends either at home with little ones or not up for the adventure ahead of me. My divorce has been final for one week. I have never felt so alone.   On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":25425,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-stories","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/164.68.121.224\/wrsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}