The infamous “surf torture” was really fun for a short while. It was neat to find out firsthand why it’s so hard. (The answer is that when the waves recede, they pull the sand out from beneath you. Everyone starts tumbling and getting sucked out of line, so when the next wave hits, it’s not hitting a solid wall of linked arms but scattered human flotsam and you go under.)
But it turns out that exposure to cold is terrible and demoralizing. One moment I was charging along, feeling “strong like bull,” wet and tired but still smiling, but then in the next moment I fell apart into a shivering wreck. After that, I couldn’t be far enough from the water for my liking. I think the precise word for what I felt is “horror,” a bristling, shrinking fear and aversion that mewls “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
Yet another surprise was that, later when we *were* sent back into the water, I was able compartmentalize the horror and jump in anyway. More exactly, I was “mindful” of the horror but distant from it, like the difference between watching an NBA game from the very edge of the court, where the players are so close that you feel the floorboard thundering underneath you, and watching the same game from up in the rafters. Same game, less drama.