I’m in Ixtapa, Mexico, stretched out on a bobbing surfboard with my neck straining and my eyes bulging. Water froths at my feet and the sun flares. It’s oddly sensual, and crazy exciting.

The instructor yells, “Get up, get up, get up!” As I struggle to do so, and balance on my surfboard atop the roiling Pacific wave that is making it rise, I realize I’ve heard this somewhere before. Oh, yes—the urgent call to arms echoes a nervy exhortation to get up, get up, get up and do it. Right. Now. Uh-oh. Performance. Anxiety.

Concentrate! But, in the instant my mind yanks control from my body, the tail of my board droops. The wave continues without me, where it lapses onto the shore. Sploosh.

Whatever your age and wherever you are, you can hear surfing’s siren call. I grew up on the beach in Toronto, near the boardwalk, and though the waves of Lake Ontario were usually too mild for surfing, surfing was everywhere. The tinny swell of Beach Boys songs played on the car’s AM radio. Surfing lit large on drive-in movie screens during the goofy innocence of Beach Blanket Bingo and, later, ominously, in Apocalypse Now. Surf culture still influences fashion, movies, literature, recreation, music and speech, dude.

When I met local surf legend Leon P. Yañez at his Catcha L’Ola surf shop in Ixtapa, we kicked around annoyances that we both have shrugged off since turning 50. Prostate problems, detached retinas, intestinal mysteries, the cumulative flotsam and jetsam of living as we float downstream to the evermore.

Yañez is barrel-chested and imposing and is considered something of a surf god in the Ixtapa region. He says there are even guys in their 70s taking up surfing. And it’s picking up steam as recreation for kids and families, too.

Surfing is perhaps the last great athletic frontier—it’s a growing sport for thrill-seekers of all ages and for aging adventurers. You learn to harness your energy to the ocean and ride the thrill of a cresting moment. And you come to wisely accept that every wave will end.

Life is short. Before you punch your ticket, you want to travel, try everything and take the ultimate ride.

Even if that ride rockets you over the front of the board as the nose dips below the surf (tip: don’t move too far forward on the board), and you plow face-first with your mouth open and swallow seawater (tip: close your mouth).

When you wash up on the beach, practise your surf lingo. Announce loudly to whoever might be listening, particularly the young women in the bright pink bikinis: “Man, did I ever airdrop that hairy wave. I am amped.”

Sure, the bikini-wearers might stare at you because they know you are a poseur. Or maybe it’s because of the Bermuda trunks that seem to have been pulled down a bit too far by that last wave? Shorts down? Time to depart “wiki wiki” (Hawaiian for fast).

If you’re going to surf, get an instructor. Especially if you’re on holiday and it’s your first time. My various instructors through the years have included Yañez’s brother, Edgardo, who instructed me how to surf in Ixtapa. After I went surfing with Sean Jensen of Ukee Surf School in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island during the winter (you don a full wetsuit for that), I raved so much about it, a buddy took his kids there for their first surfing lessons.

When I visited Los Cabos, Mexico, Sergio Garcia, a private instructor who works with Baja Outback, taught me at Playa Acapulquito, known locally as “Old Man’s Beach.”

In time, kids might make it all the way to their own version of Old Man’s Beach. I hope that, along the way, they relax instead of fight against the churning water. The ride can end quickly, so enjoy it, always.

I did, by the way, finally “get up, get up, get up” on the surfboard in Ixtapa, crouched low with my arms outstretched like wings—a first for me. Some surfers claim that first ride to the shore is better than sex. There are more rides to come, but it’s true—you never forget your first time.