And it goes on....

The beach has come alive this morning! Lots of people here first thing, making a day of it no doubt. What a great holiday they must be having. It really is amazing and long may it continue.

Strike while the iron's hot

One of the most challenging and frustrating stages of your surfing development will undoubtedly be learning to catch and ride unbroken waves. Once you've experienced your first drop, (after a lot of board banding!), you'll want to do it again and again and again. It's where the obsession begins.

There are two main challenges that stand between you and your first green wave.

1) Physical

a) You need to be a good paddler - for getting out through the waves and then for generating enough speed to catch them once you're there.

b) Ideally you'll have a good pop up ie straight to your feet. If yours is a bit on the slow side and a bit kneesy, that won't stop you catching an unbroken wave but it will prevent you from getting to your feet at the top of the wave, vital for generating speed and setting up your line. A slow take-off guarantees a ride straight to the beach, a quick one will see you ride across the face.

Developing the physical aspect of surfing is mainly down to time in the water and a lot of progress can be made in the white bubbly stuff. However, if you're not able to get to the beach, lots of swimming will help prepare you.

2) Surfing Conditions

To make your first few attempts at catching waves you need the right conditions. Somewhere in the region of 2 - 3ft is ideal - not too big to be neither scary nor exhausting. But big enough to bring about a hug smile on the drop!

If you live on the beach, 2-3ft will come your way naturally. If you don't however, you're going to need a bit of luck. How many times have you come to the beach on hols to find the surf huge or tiny! It's the inbetweeny that we want. If you want to push on, you need to be smart and strike while the ovens hot! And that's why I urge you to check out this weeks forecast - as forecasts go for 'beginners and improvers' it's perfect. 2ft all week with temperatures reaching 20 degrees!

The long Easter period has spread everyone out, so it's busy, but a nice busy. A calm busy with lots of smiley faces. If you fancy coming down and joining them for a good value break, I'd check out the camp sites. It's definitely BBQ weather.

Stunning

It's the only way to describe the weather we're having at the moment. Stunning. And the surf's been really good too. Long may it continue. A lot of people around today.

City LIfe

The beach has been busyish - not that I can really say from a visual point of view. Now that Fin has also been invited up to Plymouth Argyle for trials we spend three afternoons up there in the big smoke and somewhere else on the planet for matches on the weekend. Coming back to the beach feels like a holiday! Both boys going great though - hoping for news soon. And then we have a footie tournament down at Newquay all week.

Surf's looking pretty good this morning - head high, glass. Lots of interest in the Kids Academy. Cool.

Easter - make a break for it!

Polzeath once again does it's thing! Stunning out there today - it's been a very good run. Easter is nearly upon us - bring it on. We're good to go - should give us an idea how the season's going to pan out. If the weather continues like this, everyone's going to have a very good time. It's funny, as soon as the sun comes out the phone and e-mails go crazy! We put an e-mail out to our clients about two weeks we still had available at the Beach House, and they were booked in ten minutes.

New for this year? The Surf's Up! Kids Academy which is launching at Whitsun. We're excited about that. Bit of blurb..... "Three day course based at our training centre - for ages 6 - 17 years old (split into age and ability groups - novice to intermediate). Changing room, showers, logbooks, certificates, video coaching... loads of fun and loads of surfing. You'll also get the chance to meet and surf with some of the UK's top junior surfers. Instructor/student ratio of 1 to 6! Limited places." I think this is going to be a chicken dinner - 16 years of experience, t

aking complete beginners all the way to the British Team - it's there in one little bundle! Really looking forward to getting our teeth into this one.

And let's not forget that when you come down to the beach - you can hire boards and wetsuits from us - even if you're not doing the lessons!

Monday Morning Surf Report

Pretty sweet out there this morning! Head high on the sets, lined up, breeze from South-East - no-one in, yet! Not classic, but could be a lot of fun.

Back on the Beach

I've absolutely no idea how busy it's going to be over the Easter period, what with a Royal wedding thrown in at the end. I'm pretty sure some people will be taking a whole load of time off work to make the most of the bank holidays. There's a few people on the beach today who've decided to make an early break for it. Word on the street is anywhere North of Newquay will have a good season, but people are not booking any further south because of the fuel prices. Makes sense I guess.

We're back on the beach full time from today. Normal service resumes. Hold onto your hats, time to get it on.

Insane

Billy's eyes were wide as saucers. "That was insane!" he stated. To be fair, on the father / son bonding scale it was an eleven. The tube we were on had stopped, engines off. "Ladies and gentlemen, there is an unidentified package in train ahead. This service will been terminated until further notice." Damn - we had to get on the 1.06pm from Paddington to get Billy back for footie trials at Plymouth. That gave us 30 minutes.

"Okay, let's go". We emerged onto the streets at Westminster. Taxi! We hailed but no one stopped. Must have been my road bike that I had in tow. Okay, think, think, think. "Right Billy, hop on." Somehow both of us (with backpacks) got onto the bike and we began what was to be the most extraordinary half an hour I can ever remember.

"Stop" said the policeman outside Whitehall. You can't cycle on the pavement. We got onto the road. Manic would be one way to describe it. I'd come up the day before to stay with my Mum in Cobham and thought it'd be cool to cycle from Paddington, so I knew that getting through central London was really not that great. And here I was, two up on a bike with Billy cycling through Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch rushing to catch the train.

We missed it by two minutes! Damn again. "I can't believe we just did that!" We collapsed in exhaustion. Hey ho, got the next train and eventually arrived at the training ground one minute early! What a day. It'll go down as one of those adventures that we'll always remember. Off the scale. If only they'd known at Plymouth the effort that went into getting him there for training. Some commitment to the cause. Funny thing was, Billy had his best training session yet. Must have been the adrenalin!

It's all gone Larry Grayson

Do not adjust your screen - it really is that grey out there. But just look at the fun to be had!!

We had a very good meeting yesterday. It's so important that we keep evolving, especially with all the experience we've accumulated over 16 years. But we feel it's time to have a complete shake up of all the courses we offer - from top to bottom. So we discussed that yesterday, and I think we all came away excited about it. Each year we do a bit of tweaking, but I think we can run with more than a tweak.

Monday Morning Wave

No complaints about the day - sun's out, 2ft glass. Couple of people in having some fun. It's been Polzy at it's best these past few days.

Not that we get to see it! Seems we spend most of our time in the car. Plymouth three times a week for Billy's footie (he played against Bristol Rovers on the weekend 2-2). Fin's footie is also all over the place - Bodmin, St. Austell and Truro. Thank goodness we got rid of the Landy! This week Billy's on a residential school trip up in the London, but I've got to get up there to bring him back early for footie on Thursday. So much for a life on the beach!