Catching a Wave Without Seeing It : Blind Surfing Students Learn to Sit on Top of the World

Lying on his stomach, Damin Bordenave, 9, caught a wave and rode a surfboard 50 feet into the smooth, wet shore.

“Yeah, that’s good!” he screamed, grinning in surprised delight as the surfboard came to a stop.

Then he stood and took the hand of instructor Jeff Edgar, who had worked with him in the water.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Damin, who is totally blind. “Let’s go in deep.”

A student at Frances Blend School for the Visually Handicapped in Los Angeles, Damin took his first surfing lesson recently along with 13 other summer campers from the Braille Institute Youth Center in Los Angeles.

The youngsters, all legally blind, see no better than 20/200 in their best eye with maximum correction. At best, they see things as clearly at 20 feet as a person with 20/20 vision sees them at 200 feet.

Accompanied by six Braille Institute staff members, they hiked down a hill from Pacific Coast Highway to County Line Beach just north of the Ventura County line.

“Our whole program is to create independence,” said Julie Harvill, assistant youth director for the Braille Institute Youth Center, as she watched surfboard-toting instructors leading campers into the ocean for individual instruction.

“You want them to know that they can do anything that any sighted child can do. We take them all sorts of places--snow skiing, rock climbing and water skiing.

“We do things that a lot of people believe visually impaired people cannot or should not do,” she continued. “We don’t believe in putting restrictions like that on students.”

Damin appeared to feel few restrictions in the water.

“He was great,” instructor Edgar said after the youngster rode to the sand. “He kept saying, ‘I want to go in the big ones (waves). I want the water in my face.’

“He said, ‘How deep is it here?’ I said, ‘Six feet.’ He said, ‘I want eight feet.’ He had no fear.”

Edgar, Malibu surfing school owner Ted Silverberg and Tim Ball, administrative director of the Los Angeles County Surfing Assn., worked to ease what fears the campers developed.

“We’ll never be away from you,” Silverberg said, gathering the campers around him in the sand. “If you fall off the board, don’t worry. I promise, we’ll be two inches away.”

As scores of surfers rode waves nearby, Irene Khalil, 11, donned a wet suit and strode into the water with Silverberg.

A few steps into the ocean, Silverberg knelt in front of Irene, also a student at Frances Blend School, and put his hands on her waist to allow her to get used to the undertow.

Irene, who must keep her eyes closed most of the time because they are extremely light-sensitive, has 20/200 vision with maximum correction. Hearing the loud waves crashing, she wanted to stay on shore until they subsided, so Silverberg returned her to her friends sitting on towels.

“Close your eyes,” Ball said. “Even though these waves are nothing to us, if you can’t see, they must sound like the largest waves on Oahu.”

Most campers, including accomplished swimmer Aishah McKinney, 16, were more comfortable than Irene entering the water.

Falling, Climbing Back Up

As an instructor stood beside Aishah and steadied her surfboard, the Downey High School senior stood on the board, fell into the water and climbed back up.

Aishah, who can see large objects at very close range, said she was undaunted by the water but feared trying to stand on the board.

As she continued to frolic, Ball took Irene 50 yards down the beach to a quiet spot and encouraged her to enter the water again.

“These kids have to know they can trust you,” he said. “Since they can’t see it, they have to feel it. That’s why I like to take them away from everybody else and teach them one-on-one.”

‘Warmest Feeling’

Ball, who has extremely weak night vision and who once worked at the Braille Foundation, suggested that Silverberg invite Braille Institute youngsters to learn surfing.

“Every second you’re with them, they make you feel it’s the best thing in their lives,” Ball said. “You don’t get that from your friends.”

He called the day memorable.

“I’ve been teaching surfing many years,” said Edgar, 28. “It’s the warmest feeling I’ve ever had. It was fabulous.”

Silverberg’s father, Ed, an attorney, watched Ball work with Irene Khalil.

“You don’t realize how gutsy they are,” he said, “until you see this little kid, and the instructor is holding on to her and she asks, ‘Which way is out?’ ”