After I had finished my scuba diving course, I thought I would challenge myself just a little bit further by trying some suurfing! 

It didn’t take long before I learned that surfing is not easy! I knew it would be difficult, because I’ve never quite understood how those surfers get up on their boards, but that I would look so ‘unelegant’ and ‘unflexible’ I couldn’t have imagined.

I booked my surf school with Gary’s Surf School in Muizenberg! 

Look at the sweet little car I found that belongs to Gary’s surf school

But, off I was to try and attempt some surfing!

We went surfing with sharks!!! 

Just kidding, black flag just means there’s not great visibility for the shark spotters

Seeing as I was in the water surfing the whole time, I don’t exactly have any pictures of myself surfing, so I went back and took some photos of other people instead, haha!

We started off with our surf board on the beach, and the instructor explained to us the method you use to get up when you are in the waves. After practicing that a couple of times we were bringing the boards in to the (very cold) water.

Next challenge: stand up on the board in the water.

This was easier said than done, but after a couple of tries, I actually managed to stand up. It did not look very elegant or surfer-style-ish, but I was up and I was super proud.

After standing up a couple of more times, the instructor said I was to do it on my own for a bit, so I played around in the water for about an hour, probably standing a maximum number of 5 times, but practice makes perfect they say!

The thing I found with surfing is that you have to wait around for a long time until you find a good wave, and finally when you find it, you might not paddle fast enough to ‘surf’ the wave. If you do paddle fast enough, you might get up too slow and fall off, so at least for beginners – there’s a lot of time spent off the board, rather than on. It is a thrilling experience when you actually do stand up and you are able to surf the wave, but I think it will take a lot of practice before I can surf comfortably and actually get a lot of surfing out of the time I spend in the water.

After 2 hours of surfing, I was completely exhausted and went back to Stoked Backpackers. I was keen on getting a bit more surfing practice while I was still in Muizenberg by the beach, so I did 2 more hours of surfing the following day as well!

On the Sunday evening, Ed and Heather came to pick me up and they took me to my host family’s house in Claremont where we had my first South African braai (a BBQ) and I got to know my new family, the MacArthur’s a little bit better. And now, after a week at the MacArthur’s, I have settled in very nicely and I am enjoying myself a lot – but more on them and that later 🙂

It had been an absolutely amazing week in Muizenberg with both scuba diving and surfing; a week that has truly enriched my book of experiences!