One of the things I’ve been looking forward to on this trip is doing lots of the watersports I love, namely sailing, diving, white water rafting and surfing. Recently I had my first chance to take to the sea for a spot of surfing. As the last time I got on a board was in Jersey about 3 years ago and I wasn’t particularly good then, I opted to have a beginners lesson. I thought Dave might need some persuading to join me but he was very keen, and so we headed to Woolacombe (North Devon) to join a group lesson. As an aside, I would like to note that I was pleasantly surprised by the number of good looking surfing boys on the beach, especially the lifeguards (check out our gallery), and I’m sure Dave would say the same about the ladies. Anyway, back to surfing. We were kitted out in wetsuits and rash vests and carried our boards down to the beach.

Our instructor, John, sat us down on the sand and explained how we should catch waves and showed us how to ride in on our knees, as a first step. After practising this on the beach it was time to take our newly learnt teachniques to the waves. I’d forgotten just how tiring it is getting out even to waist deep when you have a surfboard in tow. Once we were there we patiently waited for the perfect wave, paddled like mad and cruised in, firstly lying down, then on our knees. We both had pretty good sucess with this, although I caught quite a few steep waves (apparantly due to the low tide) and nose dived a few times, causing me to get a mouth full of salt water and wonder where I was for a few seconds.

Once we had mastered this, John took us back to the beach to practice converting the kneeling stance into a full on stand-on-the-board. This is where it started to get hard: push ups, squats and correct feet placement were all involved. Back to the sea, we were all keen to stand. I found it hard to make the transition from kneeling to standing as I was always so happy just to have caught a wave that I didn’t want to risk unbalancing myself by trying to get to my feet. But with a bit of repetition I got there.  Dave did some mammoth paddling and managed to get to his feet for a split second, before plummeting head first into the surf again!

The next morning we were both very sore around the shoulders and triceps but it was well worth it for the fun we had. As with most sports, it needs a lot of practice and we hope to get out there whenever there’s a chance to hire boards. If you fancy a giggle, look out our surfing pictures. We thought we were really cool, but looking at the photos now……..well, you decide. 

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