Sandboarding – A Dramatic Interpretation

“I recognize your look of trepidation,” said Melissa, my travel writing instructor, as my classmates and I exchanged glances. Fresh from an all-too-brief explanation of how to sandboard, I realized that my face betrayed my inner concerns. I mean, who would willingly go careening down a sandy dune on a three-foot-long piece of wood that looks more like a giant popsicle stick than a form of transportation? Oh, that’s right – I would.

On a fateful summer day, Melissa led intrepid members of her travel writing class to Sand Master Park pro shop in Florence, Oregon, where we rented four sandboards and at least attempted to leave our cares behind us. The dunes called to us, and we answered the call – with a little fear, in my case.

The concept seemed simple. Strap onto the board, lean on your back leg, pick up some momentum and coast through the sand while maintaining some semblance of balance. As we arrived at Honeyman Memorial State Park, I repeated this mantra in my head.

At the base of a massive dune, I paused and glanced up at it. The sun, unusually conspicuous for the Oregon coast, beat down on the sand, causing the crystals to glitter. The top of the dune offered blue sky and a view of the nearby lake. It all seemed innocent enough.

Toting our newly-rented sandboards, my class and I made our way to the middle of a dune, deciding the height to be sufficiently challenging for our first sandboarding attempt. The view from our sandy perch both awed and intimidated, the steep incline of the sand looking slightly more insidious than desired.

My classmates plopped down in the sand and bravely strapped their boards to their feet. For a moment, we looked at each other, wondering who should be the first to risk ingesting a mouthful of sand. Then, one by one, the brave souls took the plunge and glided to the bottom of the dune.

“It’s your turn!” my boyfriend Mario announced after his successful trip down the hill, handing me his board expectantly. My time had come.

Board strapped securely to my bare feet, I stood, bending my knees and testing the stability of the contraption. Oh good, I thought, it has no stability whatsoever.

Finally, keeping in mind the successful ventures of my classmates, I inched forward into the sand and allowed myself to begin the treacherous descent. Images from my first year of snowboarding as a 13-year-old flashed into my head while I picked up speed.

One particular snowboarding memory stuck out, in which I took a headlong tumble down the bunny hill, flipping lengthwise and landing with my face planted in the snow. I had crashed so badly that someone from the ski lift above shouted down, “Are you alright down there?”

I answered by waving my gloved hand in the general direction of the voice, too embarrassed to remove my face from the snow and reveal my identity.

Luckily for me, sandboarding treated me kindly on my trial run. The coastal wind whipped my hair out of my face, and although I participated in some arm-swinging and leg-wobbling, I did not fall to a sandy doom. The addictive sensation of flying made me smile and forget to worry.

As for Melissa, she zoomed care-free down the dunes, crashing here and there but also experiencing the exhilaration of weightlessness that the cautious boarders (like me) sadly miss. In the end, our “trepidation” was unfounded, but perhaps its very existence drove us to challenge it with bravery.