During April break, a two friends and I ventured down to the South of Sri Lanka, to Weligama, and spent 5 nights at a beach house in hopes to surf everyday. It was one of our friends’ first times surfing so they had an instructor and also used a ‘softboard’ (beginners board). My other friend and I had some experience surfing as we had each tried it once before. So, in an attempt to save money and time, we decided to use the ‘hardboards’ and try to surf without an instructor.

On the first day, for the first 30 minutes or so, we couldn’t catch a single wave. We then took a 5 minute break and sat on our boards, watching my other friend who had the instructor. After watching and listening to what the instructor was telling him, we tried again and actually succeeded. It’s safe to say that, initially, we overestimated our surfing skills.

After this reintroduction to the techniques of surfing, we were catching almost every wave we attempted.

Recorded on GoPro by Andrew Hurd

 

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

I showed commitment to and perseverance in this particular CAS experience by surfing every single day even though there were a lot of reasons not to. For example, it was our holiday. We could’ve spent the afternoons hanging out with each other, exploring Weligama or any other activity. Instead, we wanted to get better and achieve our goals of being able to surf so we committed to it. Additionally, we had a lot of scrapes and bruises from the friction and wipeouts on prior days. We could’ve decided to rest to prevent further injury but we decided that, in order to get better at surfing, we would have to persevere and continue. Lastly, because the waves and weather patterns are fairly unpredictable, at times we couldn’t even catch one wave. This made us want to give up as we were just being lifted and dropped by waves. Instead of quitting, we waited patiently until we could finally catch a good wave.

 

LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

I demonstrated that challenges were undertaken and also developed new skills in the process in two different ways. Firstly, it was my first time using a hard board which was a major step up from a soft board. Hard boards are meant to assist you with catching waves with more power as you can pick up more speed. This means that it is a lot harder to balance on one and, if you wipe out and get hit, you could get seriously injured. In contrast, the soft board helps you to find your balance and is designed for smaller waves. Clearly, making the step up, with a 4 month absence of surfing in between and without an instructor was a challenge. We made the most of this situation as we tried over and over again until it became muscle memory. After the first two days, surfing on a hard board was easy. The second challenge was not having an instructor. This meant that we were completely self taught on a hard board and allowed for us to develop new skills individually.

 

Supervisors: Jason (Instructor) & Andrew Hurd