“You must become one with the board,” says Lauren, her aquamarine eyes dancing as we wade through the waist-deep breakwater. It’s the kind of line one expects to hear in earnest from a serial beach bum in Byron Bay, but this being England, it is served with a healthy dose of irony. “This one,” she cries, pointing to the onrushing line of froth and churning wavelets. I fix my gaze determinedly on the shore and begin to paddle.
I had arrived in North Devon the previous evening intent on learning to surf. Although I lived in Sydney for two years growing up, I had never so much as touched a surfboard. In my defence, I was only a toddler at the time. Now, thanks to an employment hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic, I found myself with an unfettered month to rectify the situation. North Devon suited the case perfectly: an embarrassment of eligible beaches, easier to reach than Cornwall or Pembrokeshire, and plenty of surf schools.
My kind of classroom
It is to one of these schools that I present my blank canvas of surfing potential on a breezy and overcast Wednesday morning. Light drizzle begins to fall in the car park. I have booked onto a group beginner lesson, but the group is nowhere to be seen. “Oh, it isn’t quite 9:30” says Lauren, my instructor, cheerfully, “the session isn’t due to start yet.” After 10 minutes of loitering and a couple of apologetic phone cancellations, she emerges from the beachside hut looking faintly bashful. “Looks like it’s just you and me after all.”
I’m far from disappointed about the prospect of personal tuition and trot down the rocky path to the beach with a spring in my step. Well, as much of a spring as is possible lugging my “foamie” (8-foot beginner surfboard made of high-density foam) through a maze of jagged rocks. The longboard sacrifices manoeuvrability for balance; a worthwhile trade-off for novices who are usually more concerned with staying on the damn thing than executing fancy cutbacks. The buoyant foam rides higher in the water than a hardboard, making it easier to catch the waves. It’s also less painful if the board catches you in the face.
When we reach the sandy expanse of the bay, the wind barrels into us from the north-west. Lauren seems to possess an uncanny ability to predict the gusts and angle her board so as to spear forward like a dancer. My own foam companion flaps crazily and my path across the sand follows the unpredictable zig-zag of a drunkard. Eventually, we reach the rippling edge of the water. It is half-tide.
New tricks
Lauren is giving me a primer on the conditions. “So, it’s a beach break with a rip current down the middle. If you get caught in the rip, don’t try to fight it, just swim parallel to the shore.” I nod sagely, not mentioning that I had been pulled out by the very same rip while bodyboarding the previous evening and spent a few puzzled minutes trying to work out why I couldn’t get back in. She shows me how to “pop up,” that is to spring deftly from paddling position to upright surfer. The approved stance is front foot planted at a 45-degree angle in the centre of the board and rear foot resting half a pace behind to guide the tail. I practice a few times until she pronounces me ready to hit the waves.
It’s a reasonable surf day for July in North Devon. The glassy, green slopes rise up to 5 feet as they sweep over the sands of the west facing bay and prepare to unleash the energy from their long journey across the Atlantic. We are closer to the shore, where the waves have already curled, broken and resolved themselves into discrete slices of foam. The whitewater is beginner territory because it requires no real timing to catch, unlike the green waves where you must position yourself at precisely the point where the swell metamorphoses from innocuous bump to towering wall.
I paddle until I feel the whitewater catch and propel the board, then place my hands beneath my shoulders and leap upright in a single motion. For a moment I am gliding on the surface, no longer a man but a chiselled Poseidon, droplets cascading from the strand of seaweed caught in my hair, arms raised in messianic exultation over this, my Galilea. But my right foot has landed too far back, a tiptoe rather than a solid plant. I teeter precariously, fighting for balance, then one side of the board catches in the wave and I am jerked in headfirst. I splutter to the surface and am nearly hauled under again as the leash of the board, still steadfastly bound for the shore, tugs at my ankle. Lauren, with admirable restraint, stifles a giggle.
A real rib-tickler
“It’s not good news.” The eyes boring into me are slate grey rather than aquamarine, made all the chillier by the now ubiquitous face mask. After my lesson, I enjoyed a few days frolicking in the surf, gradually learning to stay up longer and moving deeper towards the shimmering green walls of unbroken wave. Then disaster struck on a fateful wipeout, the board caught between my body and the surf. My chest was in the wrong place at the wrong time as an edge came bowling into me. I didn’t feel too bad right then, but the next morning it was painful to sit up and when I tried paddling out it seemed as though someone was jangling a rusty spear inside my rib-cage.
Now I’m sitting in Okehampton’s minor injury clinic awaiting judgement. The nurse tells me that one of my left ribs is either broken or badly bruised. Either way, the sentence is the same. No surfing. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, having committed to spend my month of freedom next to one of England’s finest beach breaks and the day before purchased my very own softboard. Ah well, I console myself on the country lanes back north to the coast. There’s always next summer.
Photo credits
Breaking wave: Tim Marshall
Surfer silhouette: Jeremy Bishop