‘Surfing isn’t really in my blood. It’s hard to catch a big wave in Billingham’ – Jamie Bell
I’ll be the first to admit that a bad habit of mine is having a tendency to have unrealistic ideas about things. I convinced myself once that harem pants would looks good on me, or i’d be able to pull off dark ginger hair. Oh how wrong I was on both counts. When I was away for the weekend in Newquay for my cousin’s hen do in June, I was completely convinced that i would ace surfing; I have good balance, strong legs and love being in the water. In my deluded little bubble, I was born to do this.
We booked through Escape surf school which cost around £25 for a two hour group lesson. We arrived and got into our wetsuits, which let me tell you is a workout in itself! We took our boards down to the beach and split into smaller groups of 5 where we went through a few basics on the beach. Pigeon, our instructor was brilliant fun a made a special fuss over Liz, our hen. I’d always been concerned with surfing lessons that, especially for the first lesson, you’d spend more time on the beach than you would in the water, however after about 15 minutes we were straight in.
We started of small, learning how to catch a wave and ride it to the shore whilst still lying on our front. So far so good. It didn’t feel too cold either, the wetsuits were nice and thick s protected you against the bracing Atlantic Ocean pretty well and when the water did hit your hands and face it was nice and refreshing. After plenty of practices in the water it was back to the beach to learn how to stand up.
This was what I was desperate to get right. My main ambition was to get up on my feet at least once, even if it was only for a couple of seconds. We went through the theory and were straight back into the surf (after one lesson i’m practically a pro, so know all the lingo – naturally!). This is were my delusions became all too apparent. Getting up onto the board from lying down is near on impossible and needless to say the furthest I got up was on to my hands and knees. Upper body strength has never been something I have possessed and no matter how good your balance or your core strength may be, if you can’t haul your massive pizza obsessed caboose onto the board, that balance doesn’t mean jack.
Still i persevered and the instructors were in the water with you the whole time to advise on potition and waiting for the right wave. One of the down sides of being is a lrage group was we were all trying to surf in the same area of the water so a few times i found myself ploughing into one of the other girls, or vice versa. That possibly has more to do with our lack of control as well of course but it did mean I left with some pretty corking bruises.
The two hours we had was ore than enough time as I was pretty shattered by the end of the session. In fact with about half an hour to go, my arms were so done with trying to get my fat arse upright that I just decided to body surf the rest of the time, which was good fun in itself.
Above all of my frustrations though I’m really pleased I gave it ago because I love trying new things especially if they’re sporty or water based and I would highly recommend Escape Surf school who were ultimate pros. The glasses of prosecco that awaited us when we finished were certainly well received and well deserved!
