The Times Weekend, August 2000

Surf’s up, UK style

Fat tummies are a bit of a handicap for the trainee surfer.  For, as I soon discovered, beginners spend many hours lying down on the board.  Why do surfers have flat stomachs?  So they don’t roll off.  Surfing wear, those skin-sucking wetsuits, also accentuates every body ripple, so there’s no chance of hiding that beer belly. 

Perhaps it was lack of a substantial stomach that helped me win the award for best on-the-beach surfer in the first half an hour of my weekend learn-to-surf course.  On Croyde Bay’s long, flat, sandy beach, almost deserted except for a few holidaymakers hudling on their towels, the accolade went largely unacknowledged.

Darren, an expert surfer with an aerodynamic haircut and an armload of qualifications, took my group of 12 trainees through a few basics: how to stand up, quickly followed by how to fall off – a hint here of what was to come.  “There are four ways to get on the board," he explained.  The first, for the confident, was a leap from the water straight into standing position, the second was to go into a half-kneeling, half-standing pose, and number three was to kneel up on the board.

Typically we all opted for number four.  “Just lie down on the board and paddle when the wave picks you up, and remember to keep your arms back," he advised.  He made us go through a few dry runs on the beach, where I quickly impressed with my ability to leap instantly into the upright position.  My stance was steady, my position low and balanced, and my hands stretched out, as I had seen on so many Californian television programmes.  “That’s pretty good," said Darren, enthusiastically.  I think he imagined great things ahead for me.  Maybe I would leap on to a board within seconds and surf elegantly into the shore.

But having even vaguely the right kind of stomach was not enough to help me leap through two days of hard graft before hitting the high life.  After a few more minutes, Darren uttered those words which, I think some of us were wishing he would forget: “OK, let’s get in the water."

A year living among surfers on the Californian coast had prepared me for the worst.  Surfers who had learnt their skills while still in primary school had warned me it was though to learn how to control the board, not to mention stay on it.  They put me off further by setting their alarm clocks for 6am, to be woken as the first shaft of sunlight slipped over the surf.

In Devon, the first good sign was that we didn’t start until 10:30am, and the second was that the ever-calm, ever-supportive Darren seemed to expect we would all be able to stand up on the surfboard by the end of the course.

The board has to be tied to your ankle so it doesn’t go flying and hit someone across the head or disappear into the distance.  A sort of penguin-style hobble hop was the best method of getting around, although it felt like I was having a three-legged race in the water.  We had until lunchtime to take our first baby steps towards being real surfers on our especially wide surfboards.

“They are more stable.  It gives you more chance of staying on," explained Darren.  It is like riding a bike with stabilisers, apparently, and the boards are squidgy, soft and yellow, so they don’t hurt so much if you get hit by one – plus you can see them coming.

Like ducklings, our flock went through our first tentative moments in the water: we didn’t stray far from our encouraging leaders Darren and Tracey, who showed us how to flap our arms if a wave was coming.  I decided my best strategy was not to look behind me once I got on the board – that way, I couldn’t worry about what was coming. 

“Here’s a good one, get on," yelled Tracey, holding the tip of my board and suggesting I get paddling.  Just climbing on seemed like a huge hurdle, then there was an almost endless wait before the wave came.  “You are too far forward, slide back further down the board," suggested Darren as I emerged, spluttering, like some kind of malfunctioning kettle, with water exploding out of my mouth.

Spectators might think that lying on a surfboard is easy, but they are terribly slippery things, and it is easy to over-shoot and be in the wrong position when the wave rushes up.  There’s plenty of falling off to be done, just from this position.  There’s falling off the side of the board (or the rails as we experts call them), off the front of the board (that’s called nose diving) – there’s even an opportunity to fall off the back of the board if you really want to try everything.

I soon discovered that the speedier waves were an advantage as they swept you up, like a piece of twig hitting a waterfall, and sped you towards the beach.  Darren floated by on his board and gave me a few tips on how to cope with the bigger waves.  “You’re so nearly there," he said, after seeing me hitch up with a wave, stay on and raise myself a few inches out of my normal, completely flat position.  Almost immediately I caught a great wave.  Kneeling up on the board it felt fantastic, and skimming along at speed with my eyes fixed on the horizon, I swept along right into the beach, unable to stop myself issuing a triumphant yell.  Despite the cries of my muscles, all the work and effort has paid off.

We were definitely getting it together.  At one sunny point I managed to stand up for at least, well, ten seconds, before the board sank, and I sank with it.  “I saw you," said Tracey, waving.  It was a great moment.  I could see above the waves in front of me, through stinging eyes, and suddenly there was an adrenaline rush that could compare only with driving an open-top sports car on a motorway without any speed limits.  Wind struggled through my salt-coated hair, and all I had left, to worry about was whether this meant I would have to give up the ice-cream for good.

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