Keep the 10'6" for the surf, it will take a bit of patience but you will be surfing it in no time. If you want to get another board, why not get a 14' or something you can use for downwinders and flat water.

When starting out, just paddle your board in flat water in still conditions for a while just to get a feel for the sweet spot. Practice, turning and moving about on it. It takes a bit of time, but you will get there.

It doesn't matter how good a surfer you are, you will need to spend at least 10 hours flat water paddling on any board before thinking about venturing out in the surf. The 10.5 Nalu should be fine if you get used to it on flat and then slowly get used to taking it out in increasing swell.

How tall are you and how much do you weigh as this will probably effect recommendations.

If you still don't get on with it, you could try the Mana instead of the Nalu. They are wider and have more volume but with a nice rounded shape with lots of rocker so they are nice in the surf.

Hey Mick.
Nothin wrong with the 10'6 Nalu. Lot of us learnt on them. Great board bit less stability than others but a lot of fun.
Mines nearly 4 years old and I still take it out occasionally.
Good luck
W

hey mate - the 10.6 naish is a great board but yes it is a very tippy board for its size - however don't give up on it just yet. Once you are paddling ok in flat water and have a reasonably comfortable and efficient paddling technique you should venture into open water (ocean) on a day when there is no surf and just paddle around getting used to moving and bumpy water - no matter how glassy it looks there will always be some movement in the ocean and this is the perfect second stage in your learning process and where you will develop your sea legs and your stability on the board with improve big time after a couple of outings. After this you may want to start tackling some very very small waves or maybe even small broken waves away from the crowd and just spend a few sessions paddling around in the wave zone and learning how to paddle for waves and how to paddle out through waves. Just remember - the keys to good stability in open and rougher water are MOMENTUM (keep paddling) SOFT KNEES (very slightly bent to absorb the bumps) and LOOKING UP AT WHERE YOU WANNA GO (look down and you will go down)
Really it doesn't matter how long you have been surfing - learning to stand up paddle in the surf is bloody hard and takes time to master properly. Many people will disagree with me and will say to just get out there and have a go and you'll eventually get it, but I reckon thats a reckless attitude and just ends up giving sups a bad name with new sup surfers paddling out through lineups and falling off all over the place and just getting in the way and generally being a bloody nuisance to others in the surf.
So just stick with it and go slowly and I guarantee it will just click for you if you tackle it in stages and don't get frustrated with falling off a lot - we all fell off a lot when learning to surf sups.

I'd like to thank every one for all the good advice.I've probably got about 8-10 hrs up now and have been catching waves for the last two sessions.I've been going out in the nor-east wind chop we've been getting in Sydney latley hence the title(sploosh).I feel that on a nice smoth offshore day this board would be just fine but at only 28"wide with a vee/doubble concave right under the surfers feet she's rather hard to manage.I'm definitly keeping her but I'm just thinking of getting another one a bit longer,definitly wider,flatter rocker and with concave through most of the board.I've got'a say too;Isn't it a blowout when you first start paddling for waves standing up everything looks different and you've got to allow for the curve that the board will take so your in just the right spot at takeoff.Ha Ha....I'm hooked.