David Simpson has arranged for a unique trip to surf the waves at Lost Shore with Chris Heaney. This is unique as many (perhaps even all) of the surf centres don’t allow paddles on their facilities so getting permission has taken a fair bit of dealing by Chris. In the lead up to this session David also arranged for Chris to come and coach us at a local surf beach.
On a cold Sunday morning, 9 of us turned up at Gullane Beach to meet up with Chris. We turned up with a fine mix of surf and river boats. Being sea paddlers, we all turned up wearing our normal BAs packed out with all the usual kit: PLB, VHF, various clips, bladder packs, etc, none of which would be required when we barely got 50 meters from the beach. After introductions we discussed what is surfing; Chris’ opinion was it was choreographed dancing with the waves, or for me, to quote a famous film star it’s “falling with style”.
Probably to the amusement of the beach goers, we started learning on the beach. First drawing a line in the sand then sitting on it to redefine our turning techniques to be in front of the line (our body) rather than rear strokes. This helped encourage low brace support turns rather than a high brace survival stroke. We then moved on to turning, a quick sweep followed by using your nose to point where you want to go, bring your shoulders round to match then lift your outside knee finishing with the paddle being pushed as if we’re opening a Velux window. This must have looked funny as we danced down the beach, totally uncoordinated, practicing nose, shoulders, knee and Velux on both sides.
With the fun over we had a warm up exercise, in pairs, with one of them walking about in the shallow water while the other paddled to them. We then had 10 minutes to paddle about freely to get used to the conditions. After another chat on safety and etiquette we set off to try and catch some waves. With sea kayaks we tend to aim for the beach and hope for the best, with shorter boats you can change direction and after a while you start to relax and can even breath during the ride. Chris set some challenges and offered to help those struggling to turn before we finished. Due to the club pool sessions, we had to be off the water around 12:30, although the offer to remain was there it was either cold or tiredness that meant we all headed back to the cars. We were only on the water for a little over an hour but the old saying holds true, “surf ‘til you drop”.
Many thanks to Chris Heaney for this session and all his hard work in arranging the session next week.