I've always loved the notion of surfing from an early age - too much Hawaii Five-O I think when I was small. It never occurred for me to try until I started on this list. For one thing I've never liked open expanses of water and the second is that I'm crap at most sports (she says remembering how she used to get picked last for games at school!)
Of course I could have done this right at the outset, when I holidayed in Hawaii for my honeymoon, but we never quite found enough time for it and then of course I've been promising that we will go down to Cornwall for the past three years and never quite got there. So when I was happily reading The Guardian one Saturday, I came across an article for the Scarborough surf school. Perfect, I thought, I love Scarborough and don't need any excuse to go there and the fact that I will tick another task off the list would be a bonus.
So surf lesson was booked, accommodation booked, until I rang on Friday to check on the surf. Umm, can you do Sunday instead? he asked and actually it worked out better for us, as we got caught up in the last of the summer traffic travelling down and would have missed the lesson had it been on the Saturday.
So Sunday came and I was quite nervous. I didn't know how I would react being out in the open sea and of course it didn't help watching Jaws a few days previous. Wet suit was adorned of which I have to say is the most uncomfortable thing I've ever had to wear in my entire life. It's quite horrible having to pull the thing on that's wet from previous use and doesn't quite go were you want it to go without a rigorous amount of pulling. Next we had to carry the surf board down a very steep cliff onto the beach, which about killed me off before I'd even started surfing. We then had a very short lesson on the beach on how to get up on the board etc and then it was in to the water to confront my fears.
I had nothing to worry about. I loved it! Couldn't get on the board on the first few attempts, but after that I was on the board and riding the surf, dude. I was in a learning party of 7, 3 of which were kids and were standing up on the board virtually straight away. The most I got to was to a kneeling position, although one of the other adults managed to stagger up a couple of times. My balance was all over the place and I spent quite a bit of the time face down in the water, after falling off the board a hundred or so times, but I couldn't stop smiling the whole time I was there and I can't wait to try it again.
After about 2 hours my time was over and I walked quite happily back to the surf shop to deposit my wet suit (it's even worse trying to take the thing off!) and back to the hotel for a hot shower and wash the sea salt from my hair.
Definitely one of my favourite 40 things to do!
