the post calvin

The way to kitesurfing was long. I took the Singapore underground for an hour to a ferry, where I met Harun, the Malay organizer of my kitesurfing lesson, and Sam, a British expatriate who had learned to kitesurf from Harun last summer.

Harun was walking with a crutch. He was hobbled by a bum ACL, which he had torn in a mountain biking accident six weeks ago. Sam and I followed him onto the boat, which looked weird, because we had to slow our steps to a nearly immobile pace to allow him to lead, but it felt right.

Harun knew the whole ferry staff and could get hot dogs for free. I didn’t get one because I had been living in Singapore for nine days at that point and had no time for base American cuisine. Sam was disappointed about the Brexit, which the Brits had voted for earlier that day. But he also wasn’t too upset about it. He had been living in Singapore for five years because he couldn’t find a job in the construction industry back home. “I left that behind years ago,” he told me, which you could also understand as a tacit validation of the vote.

We took the ferry for an hour before getting off, going through Indonesian customs, and boarding a bus. The bus trip took another hour. The sky was blue, then grey, then purple as we moved further from the heavy cloak of humidity always draped over Singapore. Again, Harun knew everyone and he shifted in and out of conversation with me and the other passengers, who I later learned were part of an international kitesurfing crew that weekends on Indonesian beaches, the way Chicagoans escape to the lake after the work week, but different.

Growing up around Lake Michigan, I’d always been drawn to kitesurfing. From the beach, I would watch surfers harness the winds near the South Haven pier and move in every direction on the surface of the waters: across, over, and with the shorebound waves. It took a three-week trip to Singapore for me to decide to try it myself. I had heard it was difficult, that you need a week to truly learn, but I only had a day. It would be like home, but different.

Earlier that week after I found Harun’s website online, I called him and booked a lesson. “Will I be able to ride after a day’s lesson?” I asked. “Most people don’t,” he said. “Maybe.”

We—the international kitesurfing crew, that is—arrived at the resort shortly before midnight and then sat around in the dark around a patio table next to an empty pool. Harun handed me a beer. Later, the guy sitting next to me took out a shisha pen and passed it around.

It was Ramadan and the Ukrainian couple across the table tossed Harun and some of the other Malays questions about their culture and Islam, ranging from “Why would God want people to fast?” to “Why is it okay for us [an unwed couple] to stay in the same room here but not in Aceh?” We made jokes about religion and other things we didn’t understand.

I woke up on Saturday and met Harun on the way to breakfast. The sky was grey and the wind was coming in gusts. “This isn’t the right wind, especially for a beginner,” he told me. “I don’t know if you should go out today.” Breakfast was a buffet of omelets and curries and fried noodles and rices. There were also some sugary drinks, which Andriy told me I was better off avoiding. A storm rolled over the island, pouring rain on the canopy under which we were eating. I wouldn’t be able to go out.

As soon as I had resigned myself to the disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to kitesurf, the storm lessened. Slowly the clouds were replaced by sun and a breeze. “Are you ready to go,” Harun asked me.

“So, now? I thought you said…”

“Dude. This is the tropics. Just make it like it is.”

One of the first things you learn is how to steer the kite while standing, not on the board. Maintaining the kite in a vertical position, perpendicular to the surface of the water, is called 12 o’clock. Andy, my soft-spoken, 5-foot-3 teacher, took me into water about four feet deep and taught me how to move my arms to steer the kite to one o’clock, then two, then three.

Sometimes the kite escapes your control and dives towards the water, meeting the surface with a slap that’s audible from the shore. Sometimes the kite jumps upward, pulling you eight feet into the air and forcing Andy to raise his voice. “Kite at 12! Kite at 12!” Sometimes this happens over and over again and then you curse in German and are unsure if you’re cursing the kite, the teacher, or yourself. Then you look over to shore and see Sam spring from the beach onto the water, his board spitting spray as he breaks over the cresting waves and into a blue horizon, passed your kite, which lies 25 yards away from you, flaccid and folded on the surface of the water. Sam had once been where you are, I thought, dangling from the kite as from the tail of an angry King Cobra. Now they move with one accord.

Hours later, I could remain stationary and steer the kite with some degree of dependability, but was struggling to move, especially turn. Getting on the board seemed less and less feasible. Andy, who was fasting, told me he had to break from our lessons to pray. I believed him, but did briefly wonder if his prayer breaks were really just excuses to spend an hour away from his helpless, perhaps too determined student.

During the break I went back to shore and ordered a chicken sandwich from the bar. When we got back into the ocean, I told Andy I just wanted to learn how to body drag with and against wind. He showed me how to maneuver the kite so it would tug you along. I knelt, prostrate, knees scraping along the sand, and let the kite drag me through the ocean at a nearly immobile pace.

After another hour I was done. I met Harun and Sam on shore. Sam said the weather was so clear, if you went out far enough you could see Singapore in the distance. Then Harum asked me if I had gotten on the board. I hadn’t. He filled out a card noting my progress and told me to mention it when booking my next lesson. Then we got on the bus and began the long way home.