In the past years i tried riversurfing aka. rapid surfing on an artificial wave at the city-wave in Vienna. It’s cool to learn riversurfing in austria (we don’t have a access to the sea) and i practiced nearly every week. It’s really fun and i got little bit of addicted to it. After the riversurf season i thought why not learn surfing on a real wave at the sea.
So during my stay in portugal i joined a 1-week surfcamp at The Surfexperience in Lagos. Their surfcamp is located in the city center so it’s nice to enjoy the city life after the surf session and you got everything you need around the camp. The team is very cool and i really enjoyed my stay there. I did not know anything about surfing on the sea but their courses are very beginner-friendly and the team knows how to teach everyone the skills.
How a surf day looks like
Every morning started with a delicious breakfast on the terrace. Afterwards we met outside in front of the house and went to their surf-storage place to load the cars with the equipment and surfboards. Every day the surf team decided the where’s the best beach to surf on that day depending on the waves and surfing skills.
Arrived at the beach we put on our wet suits and warmed up to be prepared for some action in the sea. On the first day the surf instructors showed us all the important things about surfing and also safety instructions. They explained the technique how to stand up on the board and catch some waves. After some dry-trainings without water we’ve been ready to into the sea and try to catch a wave. Honestly at the beginning it’s not that easy as it looks if you watch it from the beach 😅 And what is more – if you are not well-conditioned – like me at this moment – it’s very very exhausting! After some time i got not enough power to stand up on the board because also the way back to the waves costs a lot of energy if the waves are strong and pushes you back to the beach. But i was really ambitioned to learn how to do it so after some time the first stand up without falling into the water was possible and it felt really fun.
After the surf session we’ve been very exhausted but it’s very nice to feel the success of learning something new.
To refill our batteries we had lunch (what’s included in the surf day/camp) at the beach and could relax a little bit in the sun.
After that we went back to the camp and so there was enough time to explore the city or the beaches in lagos. At that week i had some websites i was working on. My room in the surf camp had no desk, but on top of the surfhouse is a terrace where i usually was working at evenings. They also have a bar on the rooftop so it’s cool to enjoy some drinks with the guys there after surf day.
Conclusion of my surf week
The first three days are very hard – especially if you are not that sporty. I got aching muscles on my whole body 😅 but it was a lot of fun and it’s cool to see a process. After some days i could realize that it got better and better – yeah, beginner level, but i really could feel a difference and after some days it was a lot more easy to catch the right waves to surf.
I really can recommend a week at „the surf experience“ to learn surfing. It’s a lot of fun. In my view it was a good decision to book a full week instead of trying it with a 3h-course because after one day i wouldn’t book the next day because of the pain after the first day 😉 But it was good to go surfing again and again and there’s a point it makes so much fun that you won’t stop any more. I’m sure i will do it more often in future to improve what i’ve learned.
I hope this article helps some guys of you to start surfing. Let me know how you started learning surfing and where you have learned it. Feel free to leave a comment.
