We had both come a long way to make this rendezvous on a tiny Caribbean beach.
My journey spanned thousands of kilometres from an icy Calgary airport, through falling latitudes and rising temperatures until, finally, I sat on a banged-up, rented surfboard bobbing in the clear, warm waters off Jamaica’s east coast.
The approaching wave had travelled just as far, starting as a ripple off the west coast of Africa and building across the North Atlantic before pushing through the West Indies and into the Caribbean Sea.
This would be perfect, I thought, I’d join it for the last leg of its journey, through the low cliffs that guard Boston Bay and onto the sleepy beach.
It was so simple in theory.
But turning the board towards shore and my attention towards paddling, I misjudged how steeply the wave would stand up behind me. I got to my feet just in time for the board to be pulled from under them and thrown back over my head.
In an instant the hypnotic calm above the surface was replaced by violent churning under the wave.
The water that gently rocked the board moments earlier had turned on me, pushing and pulling and spinning me under its mass before I finally emerged, coughing and cursing and laughing. I had spent more than a year away from the ocean, but immediately I recalled two truths about surfing — I was terrible and it was fun.
Wiping out in such spectacular fashion in front of a group of local surfers would cement a newcomer’s place at the bottom of the pecking order at most surf spots. 
But here there didn’t seem to be a pecking order. It seemed the four other surfers in the water, wearing torn shorts and straddling boards yellowed by years of sun and salt water, were blissfully ignorant of surf rage, localism and guarding one’s turf from outsiders.
Instead, they seemed eager to share the modest swell of their home break. Indeed, once most of the water had drained from my ears, nose and throat — and the rest had settled in my stomach — one actually encouraged me onto the next wave.
There is, of course, every chance he was hoping for an encore performance. If so, I didn’t disappoint and tumbled headfirst off the next wave that rolled in.
A lively 30-minute drive from Port Antonio — during which motorists share potholed roads with erratic chickens, goats, pedestrians and taxi drivers — Boston Bay rests beneath the mist-shrouded mountains of Portland Parish in the island’s northeast and is best known as the home of the spicy Boston Bay jerk seasoning produced in the area.
The village is dotted with jerk pits — tin-roofed, open-air shacks seemingly built in a hurry a long time ago — where the seasoning is applied to chicken, pork and even lobster, which is smoked under sheets of metal and served with rice, peas and a bottle of Red Stripe beer. The meal more than accounts for an appetite built up in the surf and is best eaten on the sand overlooking the bay for which it is named.
On this morning the waves were populated by youths taking time out from their work making jewelry and carving souvenirs on the beach for sale to the visitors who trickle in to escape Jamaica’s tourist traps and sample the famed Boston Bay jerk at the source.
Once the swell dies down, my four companions return to toil lazily at a table strewn with beads, polished coconut shell, coral and sea shells. Their outdoor workshop doubles as a beachside resort, of sorts, where visitors sleep in hammocks with books covering their faces from the morning sun.
According to local surf instructor Ordell, the bay produces the best waves and surfers in Jamaica.
The swell wasn’t fantastic during my visit, but the local surfers were and some represented Jamaica at the junior world championships in Ecuador the following week.
A thickset man (and who could blame him, given the food on offer?) in his 20s, Ordell grew up with the bay in his backyard and hustling in his blood. He offers tourists a range of goods and services, including surfing lessons for beginners, for a price that, like everything else in Jamaica, is negotiable.
Granted, Jamaica’s surf spots don’t make too many waves in the world surfing community, but for a novice they provide some fun rides and welcome respite from the island’s cruise-ship crowds and spring-breakers. And being welcomed by national-team surfers for a session on their home break is an oddity that is worth the journey.