Surfing

The Last week of the Extended Stay was all about Surfing. On Monday afternoon we headed off to berry bay south where we would be having our first surf lesson. The water was a beautiful clear blue and looked nice and refreshing. The waves were around 0.5-1.5 feet and were perfect for beginners like me. At first I wasn’t that confident in surfing but after I caught a few waves and learnt how to stand up I started to enjoy it more and had more confidence in myself. By the end of the day I was very confident in my abilities to catch the smaller waves. In the last 20 minutes of surfing some bigger waves came and I was able to catch a few of these and stand up on the surf board. Overall this was a great start to the week of surfing.

The next day we went to Corny Point again but this time we went to a beautiful beach called baby lizards. The waves were a lot bigger than yesterday as they were around 4.5 feet. You could also see the rips that were forming. There were also some dolphins riding the waves as we watched from above. Mark told us that the dolphins loved to surf to. It was a long walk down to the beach and I had to stop a few times for some rest. In the end we got there and we put on our wet suits and got going. Since the waves were so big I only took the ones near the front. These waves were also fairly big, around the same height as they were in the last 20 minutes at berry bay south. We had a lunch break and then back to it. At this stage everyone got really tired quickly. Lots of people were getting cramps including myself. I had two cramps on my left hamstring, one of my right hamstring and one of the lower right side of my back. But the surf was still nice and once I had recovered, I came back for more. While we were surfing a group of around 15 dolphins came and surfed with us. They were up the back though so I couldn’t get to them. But the people up the back were so close that they could almost touch them. It also looked so cool when the rode a wave with you. This day of surfing was probably the best apart from the cramps as the waves at the back were for the advanced people and the waves at the front were for people like me.

On Wednesday morning we went to berry bay north where there were pretty good waves. The waves were around 1-3 feet. I was doing alright but I got dumped at least 20 times. We attempted 3 times to do a party wave but we failed and ended up having only 5 people riding the wave. At the end a 10 foot great white shark was around 100 metres away so they blew the horn and we all came out. Luckily no one was injured.

The highs of surfing were catching nice waves, having a good cool down and seeing the dolphins.
The lows of surfing were getting cramps and getting smashed by the waves.

Surfing was a great experience that I want to try again one day. Although it was tiring it brought the best out of me through persistence and hard work. The extended stay program was the same and I have come out a better person because of it. I’d like to thank the organisers of the program and the carers who include Dale, Moff and Bairdy.