Just thought would share with you my first day of attempting SUP Surfing. My SUP experience up until now has been confined to the creek and JM's workout classes however being a keen surfer I have been champing at the bit to have a go at surfing waves on a SUP. I don't own a SUP yet as still working out what board will be best for me.
I have a couple of days off work so my wife says lets go to Byron Bay for the day, I thought great maybe I can hire a SUP and get a surf in..good times! Anyway we get to Byron and it's an awesome day, clear water, blue skies, hot and about chest high surf at Wategos. Drop into the local surf hire shop and they have a 10'6 or 11'0 for hire. I decide on the 10'6 and a crappy alloy paddle as erred on the side of caution of having to fork out for a carbon paddle if I broke it. The board was very basic, super heavy, single fin and reminded me of one of those old early windsurf boards.
I get to the water and there was quite a bit of white water so decided to gut paddle the board through the shorey and then stand. All went well and soon enough I was paddling out the back and making it over swells without falling off. Board was a little tippy and water was lapping the feet but felt stable enough although I did end up in the drink about 10 times in time I was out surfing. I made the decision to distance myself from the crowd as to protect them, not me. I positioned myself and paddled into my first wave, got to the bottom went for a big bottom turn then 'SPLAT' I face planted the water and the board continued on straight. Lesson 1: going to need to do some footwork here, this barge aint no shortboard. Gut paddled back out and next wave planted the back foot, bottom turned then trimmed the wall through to the shorey. I did this few more times and thought…..yeah this is easy.
Now lets move up a notch and attempt to paddle out standing up. Surprisingly I seemed to get through the small stuff OK, learnt a lot from watching all the vids on the forum so that was great. Then a biggish set came through and I was almost out the back, I remember Piros mentioning in one of his posts to not hesitate and that you should paddle flat out into the oncoming wave…well that worked fine for the first two waves but obviously my flat out is slow compared to the experienced cause the third wave broke about 10 feet in front of me and I proceeded to get catapulted backwards with the board, got steamrolled, lost the paddle, then dragged back another 10m by the barge attached to my ankle. When I surfaced I was frantically looking for the paddle cause I could just see my face when the hire shop guy says that's $300 for a crappy alloy paddle thanks. Anyway saw the handle of the paddle sticking out of the water so swam to it whilst the barge was still dragging me down the beach. Had no choice but to gut slide it in to the beach and walk up to the easier paddle out zone. By now I was semi flogged, I am a pretty fit guy so was surprised by the amount of air I was sucking in.
Refusing to be beaten I wanted that one last wave so got out the back relatively unscathed and was waiting for a set. The water was crystal clear and a few turtles were swimming around, I thought this is bliss until I saw what I thought was a big rock move under my board…holy **** a shark! The heart skipped a beat then I looked at this old timer on longboard next to me and he said 'mate the backpackers surfing here are more dangerous than that” the shark was only about 2m long and swam on its merry way but thought I have had enough for the day anyway and the next wave my best for the day was my last.
All in all I loved the SUP surfing experience and I can say that I am hooked and hanging out for the next one
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when your learning and slowly build it up....away from the crowds and always give respect to other surfers and people in the water
