Surfing at last

Who said surfing was easy? I though I’d save us some cash and go down the self-taught route – sure it can’t be that hard – only to discover weeks later that I was getting absolutely nowhere, not even a knee on the board let alone my two legs.

So, while in Byron Bay Sam and I had a three hour surfing lesson on boards the width of an elephant, both of us stood up on our first attempt.  Later I showed the instructor my board and he laughed and asked if they sold me a snorkel as well.  I thought that cheeky f**ker I’ll show him. Determined to prove a point, I went out that same evening for a few hours and eventually caught a large wave and was straight up on the board.  All the lads were on similar boards so if they could do it so could I – it just took a little longer!

If you’re piss’n around in training waves you have no hope of standing on a small board, but with the larger waves you get the speed and you’re away.  It wasn’t all glory, I have far too many bruises and cuts to prove my efforts – the board doesn’t half hurt when you’re being tumbled with it like a washing machine.

Sam took these few pics when I first managed to surf and I’ve improved no end since which you’ll see in the last few. We’ve been to some 10 different surfing beaches along the coast to try out the different waves and swells.  The best was Garie Beach in The Royal National Park (the last few pics), absolutely awesome.  The waves were averaging 10–12ft and if you fell off it was hell – tumbled for a good 10–15 feet.

If anybody out there is planning on learning to surf, get some lessons and it will save you so much time and effort.  I can now see why so many people are addicted, catching and surfing a wave is one hell of a buzz!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 am and is filed under 11-Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.