I woke up at 6:30 pumped and ready to go surfing. I leapt out of bed and walked out into the common room and sat in front of the fire.

Eventually it was breaky, and boy was I hungry. Seven weet-bix later we went outside to load the surfboards on to the trailer, got our wet suits and helmets and came back inside.

We jumped out of the van got our equipment and ran down to the beach. I couldn’t wait to get stuck in to surfing.

We met the instructors and did our warm up. After that we got our boards and all piled in to the sea.

It took a while to get comfortable with the water, but that didn’t stop anyone from having fun. We all swam out looking for waves to break so we could catch them back in to shore. The waves were small at the start of the session but they got big quickly because of the approaching weather. It is so much fun paddling around trying to spot a wave and watching other people catch them in.

After what seemed a really short time we had to drag ourselves out of the water for morning tea. Eager to get back into it, we leapt in to the sea to do it all over again. The waves were now pretty big and they moved really fast. I would keep on trying to swim further out to sea but breaking waves forced me back about ten meters. I soon saw the perfect wave, it wasn’t too big or too far out. I quickly swung the  board around got on it and started to paddle, the wave was coming pretty fast, by the time I looked back to see where it was, the wave broke right on top of me and I had a massive wipeout.

It was just as fun under water as it was on top of the water. After a few more waves I turned around and started paddling. The wave broke behind me and the water pushed me forward with great speed, I jumped on to my knees, then slowly but surely got on to my feet. I was doing it, I was really surfing, for about two seconds anyway. After a while we got out of the water, got changed and headed back to the SRC.

It was a really fun but tiresome day.
Ryan - Red Cliffs SC.