Woolacombe - surf kayaking

Here are photos of the successful surfing trip to Woolacombe, organised by Mike Perrot, the club's lead coach, all-round surfing dude, and L3 surfing coach to boot.

A brief skills training was held at the lake the preceding Thursday. This was a huge laugh. We had to simulating waves by pulling on two ropes tied to either end of a kayak while the person seated practised edging to avoid tipping over. Of course, some got overly excited and pulled way too hard usually resulting in the kayaker capsizing with much cheering and whooping from those on the side.

With these lessons firmly embedded, on arrival at the beach and seeing the size of the waves, some thought there would be carnage. There were many capasizes and much emptying of boats but carnage it was not. Under Mike's coaching, skills were built, lessons learnt, and much fun had, and we all came home with good memories of the day and boatfuls of sand as keepsakes.

There were some terrific acrobatics on display, mostly unintentional it has to be said, and best game of the day was seeing how many times Chris Payne could be knocked over by running into him; Chris took it all in good spirit, but mainly in the stomache, and in the ribs.