Day 3, 12/23/2010

The surf was small again this morning with 10-15 MPH offshore winds keeping them down until around noon. It was hard to paddle into anything because the wind would push me right back down and then I'd get sprayed right in the eyes from the break. I did have some pretty nice rides though. The new board proved to be successful. But with great success comes great failure...or injury in my case. At the end of one of my rides, I jumped off my board and landed hard on my right side. The force of the fall pushed a ton of water in my ear. Later in the afternoon after having a lot of discomfort, I stopped in at the local clinic to get my ear checked; and it's a good thing I did. As the doctor so well put it, the good news is that my eardrum did not get punctured or torn in any way. The bad news is that I did have some swelling and a build up of blood on the inside of my eardrum, which lead to a diagnosis of a hematoma (or simply put: a bruised eardrum). No worries though - it's not too serious and I can still surf and play in the water for the rest of my trip. I can't ask for anything more than that. WOOHOO!!!