Skimboarding makes a day at the beach even better

If you are lucky enough to live near the ocean, then you probably spend a lot of time at the beach. What’s not to love about the cool ocean breeze in the salty air, the warm sun on your face, and the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore?

My favorite activity at the ocean is skimboarding. A skimboard is a thin, flat, carbon fiber or wooden board shaped like an oval. It is used to skim across the water after a wave crashes on the shore. What you do is slide across the wet sand while standing on the board.

The first step in learning how to skimboard is to learn how to hold it correctly. You have to hold the board a special way. If you’re a lefty, you hold the back of the board with your right hand and hold the middle left side of the board with your left hand. If you’re a righty, you hold it the opposite way.

Once you are holding the board correctly, you have to wait for the perfect wave. When the wave comes, you have to run holding the board, then give it a light toss onto the ground, and jump on it while it is moving. You want to start to slide on the slightest bit of water and wet sand. When you see the sand turning dry, jump off and run to get the skimboard before it goes into the ocean.

Patricia Alberti’s fourth-grade class, Joseph A. Edgar Intermediate School, Rocky Point