Paddle Boarding On Mother's Day at Hotel Maya

I thought it would be a great idea to buy paddle boarding lessons as a surprise Mother's Day present for Julie.  I told her we would be going someplace special with Jay and Amy but didn't give any more advance details.

"What should I wear?" Julie asked.  "Will my white skort and brown silk blouse be alright?"

"Maybe with a bathing suit underneath."

"Yeah, right," she chortled.

Amy, had been out the previous night with her friends celebrating (not too much, thankfully) her 21st birthday, so she was the last to wake up on Mother's Day.

We gave Julie the envelope containing the four passes for paddle boarding lessons and paddling tour of Long Beach Harbor with Long Beach Adventure Tours, which came with free apres-paddle margaritas. 

"Of course," Julie responded, "You do realize that we're going to Cabo in a couple of weeks because I do not want to go in the cold ocean water in California."

"You'll be pretty much out of the water the whole time," I assured her.

Julie looked out at the gray skies of 10 AM with doubt and trepidation.  "I'll drink the margaritas."

Our reservations were for noon, and fortunately as we drove down the 405 and across the 710 following my Tom Tom's instructions, the skies cleared to reveal a bright, sunny day.  Hotel Maya, where we were to join our class, turned out to be the old Hilton, which is where Julie had battled through union negotiations for one of her prior employers.

It is right next to The Reef, a cajun themed sea food restaurant where Julie and I went on one of our first dates.  On the drive to the Reef for that date, I was still wearing my sunglasses after the sun had set, which she finally removed rather than let me continue to make a fool of myself. We've laughed about that for years.  At that time, Jule's favorite entree was swordfish, but when our waiter brought the gumbo, bread and wine, we found ourselves stuffed before the main course arrived.

Back to the paddle boarding lesson on Mother's Day this year, our bushy haired instructor Neema counted the paddle boards his boss had left by the dock and realized he had more students than boards, so he found a couple of volunteers to hang out at the Maya pool and take the lesson at 2 PM instead.  Spending a sunny couple of hours by a nice hotel pool sounds good too, but I know I for one wanted to take no chances on a breeze kicking up or clouds swallowing up the sun before we did what we came to do.

We all mounted our boards from the dock without problems and proceeded to go from paddling on our knees to standing, just as Neema had explained it.  I never felt as stable as everyone else seemed to look, possibly because I was twenty to thirty years older (oh my gosh, could it really be almost forty years older?) than most anyone else there except Julie and one other very fit woman with her daughters, but I felt good enough to follow Neema on a two mile roundtrip to the Queen Mary.  Actually, I think he exaggerated that distance to make us feel good about our accomplishment, because we got there pretty quickly.

We took a break, and that's when my problems started.  Standing at zero speed, saying something to the instructor, I think a mermaid must have grabbed my board and pushed it forward.  Splash!  I was in the cold water.

Fortunately, the exercise of paddling made the water actually feel pretty good, and I was wearing a rash guard just in case this eventuality occured.  Neema hadn't personally showed us how to get back on the board, joking when asked that he had hoped the question wouldn't come up, but he had explained what to do.

I got back up without difficulty.  We still waited, resting further, and this time what must have been a whale came up from under my board and knocked me off again.  Splash!

Very funny.  Once more, I side stroked to my board, holding the paddle which made the strokes less than graceful, and pulled myself out of the water across the back of the board.  Scooching up like
a baby who wants something just out of reach, I made it back on, this time kneeling until we started out again.

About halfway back to Hotel Maya, the life jacket the harbor patrol requires for anyone within 100 feet of shore on a watercraft almost fell off the front of my board.  Perhaps an octopus had slapped at it.  In any case, it was a little more wet on one side than the other, and trying to stop it from sliding off with my paddle resulted in a question of balance unlike anything the Moody Blues had in mind.  Splash!

By the time we made it back to our original harbor, I was pretty tired from dragging myself out of the water and a little seasick from drinking some of that salty water when I fell in, so I ended up getting out a few minutes early, as did Julie and Amy.  Jay had figured out how to use his life vest as a pillow and was laying on his back sunbathing part of the time, so he had energy to spare.

After we dried off...or I should say I dried off....we went into the Maya for our free margaritas. Maya's Fuego is a really cool bar and restaurant, with walls of weathered whitewashed planks highlighted with mirror slats, other walls of large windows, and a nice liquor display giving it a modern Mexican resort feel.  The margaritas were good, and we bought some chips and salsa for $5 to go along.  It turned out later that we were entitled to two margaritas each, but with Amy drinking water, we found four between the three drinkers to be plenty.

We went out to sit by the harbor and take in the views on this sunny day, and Julie admitted it had been a great idea after all.

If you're going on a cruise out of Long Beach, why not do a little paddle boarding? Then you can rent a paddle board any time you find yourself on a beach in Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean...  It's a fun way to start your cruise.

You can see the Hotel Maya from Carnival ships in the Long Beach Port.  It ould obviously be a great place to spend a night or two before your cruise, too. Like Paradise Point in San Diego, you'll get a great vacation vibe there.  

Better service leads to better trips!